Massive blizzard hits northeastern US

A massive blizzard has begun to dump snow on the northeastern United States, where six states have already declared states of emergency and tens of thousands are without power. By early Saturday, more than 47cm of snow had fallen in parts of central Connecticut, and more than 40cm covered parts of Mansfield, Massachusetts, a half-hour drive southwest of Boston. More than 500,000 homes and businesses have lost electricity as wet, heavy snow, freezing rain and howling winds caused havoc. From New Jersey to Maine, shoppers on Friday crowded into supermarkets and hardware stores to buy food, snow shovels, flashlights and generators. Airlines cancelled more than 4,300 flights through Saturday, and Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick banned all traffic from roads Friday afternoon, believed to be the state’s first such ban since the blizzard of 1978. “This one doesn’t come along every day. This is going to be a dangerous winter storm,” said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts. The heaviest snowfall was expected Friday night and into Saturday. Wind gusts could reach more than 120kph. Widespread power failures were feared, along with flooding in coastal areas still recovering from superstorm Sandy in October. The snowstorm mercifully arrived at the start of a weekend, which meant fewer cars on the road and extra time for sanitation crews to clear the mess before commuters in the New York-to-Boston region of roughly 25m people have to go back to work.