"Bomb Cyclone" Hits the Northeast US with Winds and Snow | The financial

A "life-threatening" snowstorm swept across the northeastern United States this Saturday with heavy snow and winds that paralyzed daily life for some 70 million residents.

Cities including New York and Boston bore the brunt of the storm, which the NWS confirmed intensified into a "bomb cyclone" characterized by rapid, sharp drops in atmospheric pressure

The NWS warned of winds that could reach 50 to 75 mph and "near impossible travel conditions" in the northeastern United States.

The hardest-hit areas of New York and Massachusetts received 24 inches of snow by early afternoon, and more than 95,000 homes were without power in Massachusetts.

New York Mayor Eric Adams urged citizens to stay home, warning that "Mother Nature usually does what she wants."

The metro network operates almost normally and, as usual in bad weather, shelters thousands of homeless people during the storm.

Salt machines and snowplows were in full use in New York, where Central Park was covered in 7.5 inches of snow and regional train lines were partially closed.

In Times Square, the heart of New York, the neon lights of the billboards faded.

But the frigid temperatures didn't intimidate Robert Burck, a street performer known as the "naked cowboy." Dressed only in underwear, a hat and cowboy boots, he walked through the tourist spot playing his guitar.

"It's fantastic," Spaniard Gonzalo Vázquez, one of the few tourists walking by, told AFP. "It's like skiing surrounded by lights and LED screens."

In the trendy Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, the sidewalks were nearly deserted and many businesses were closed. But the few who braved the elements smiled as they wished each other: "Happy Snow Day!"

New York and neighboring New Jersey, as well as Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, have declared an emergency for all or parts of those states.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul warned residents Saturday that "the most dangerous phase of the storm is now."

"Please go home tonight with care, stay home over the weekend, avoid any unnecessary travel," the governor said in a statement, noting that there would be especially heavy snowfall on Long Island, New York and the lower area of the Hudson Valley.

The cold spread as far south as Florida, where the NWS warned of "scattered or isolated iguanas falling from trees" as dropping temperatures temporarily paralyze these large lizards.

Residents of towns and cities up and down the East Coast were warned to avoid unnecessary travel as well as additional heavier snowfall in New England.

On Long Island, officials reported that a woman was found dead in her car by a snowplow operator.

The New York and New Jersey state governments have declared a state of emergency and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has declared a snow emergency.

Wu recalled on Twitter to "stay off the roads if possible."

"It's going to get pretty ugly," he said in a television interview on Saturday. "It's going to be a historic storm," he said.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said there had been "severe snowfall for most of midday" and that there was still "fairly limited visibility."

For its part, Boston's public works department said 900 snowplows were hard at work on the city's streets.

Snowplow driver Mark Burns of Boston's South Shore area said the snow had turned heavy: "It was supposed to be light and fluffy, but now it's a little wet."

Some 3,500 flights, both domestic and international, were canceled in the United States on Saturday, according to flight tracker FlightAware. Some 1,000 flights that were supposed to take off on Sunday have also been suspended.

Cancellations on Friday totaled more than 1,450.

The storm follows a similar storm that blanketed much of eastern North America, from Georgia to Canada, in snow two weeks ago, knocking out power to many homes and disrupting thousands of air connections.

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