Snow tapers off, but Northeast still dealing with cold, icy streets

And, according to Weather Underground, “By the time Friday is here, people along the length of North America’s East Coast will be recuperating from a punishing round of heavy snow, high winds, and bitter cold”.

“Stay away from the coasts”, the National Weather Service in Boston tweeted. Blizzard Warnings will be in effect for the coastal areas of ME and MA, including Boston.

In Virginia, a girl was struck by a pickup truck while sledding and a 75-year-old man was hit by a snow plow while clearing business parking lots, authorities said.

Stunned residents had to flee their homes in coastal MA as frigid waters poured into their streets and engulfed their cars in ice. Six deaths were reported in Wisconsin, four in Texas, one in North Dakota and one in Missouri. “We want to clear the streets”.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists estimate the central pressure will drop below 950 millibars at its peak, making Grayson one of the strongest storms in the USA in recent history.

The storm flooded streets in some communities in coastal MA, turning roads into slushy rivers.

More than 4,300 United States flights were canceled for Thursday, according to FlightAware.com.

Forecasters expect freezing rain and sleet to end as snow in parts of northern Florida and southern Georgia by mid-afternoon on Wednesday. Since some of those incidents were due to icy roads, drivers were urged to stay away from coastal areas. The 1993 Superstorm – also called the Storm of the Century – dumped record amounts of snow across eastern areas of the U.S. on 12 and 13 March.

And while this round of snow has passed, the bigger danger may lie ahead today, as extreme cold is expected to freeze anything that wasn’t shoveled away.

As well as snow, the storm also brought risky freezing rain – rain that falls as liquid, but instantly freezes when it hits the ground. The cold front is expected to break records throughout the east.

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia reported at least a foot of snow Thursday. Boston will plunge to 7 degrees below zero – plus up to a foot of snow.

Wind chill describes the combined effect of wind and low temperatures on bare skin.

In Atlanta, where the temperature fell to 13F (-11C) before dawn on Tuesday, Dr Brooks Moore, associate medical director in the emergency department of Grady Health System, said: “We have a group of patients who are coming in off the street who are looking to escape the cold – we have dozens and dozens of those every day”. As per the weathermen, an excessive pressure drop is already bringing in the snow to Florida and will lead to an explosive wintry weather typhoon alongside the Eastern US. And after the “bomb cyclone” hits on Thursday, it’s expected to get even colder. In meteorological terms, a cyclone is a “bomb, ‘ or is ‘bombing” when it drops at least 24 millibars of pressure in 24 hours or less.

Wind speeds increase as the pressure difference between the low and the surrounding areas intensifies; sustained wind gusts can reach as high as 55 miles per hour during the peak of the storm.