What makes a winter snowstorm seem bigger than bigger is not a total amount of snow, but the velocity and intensity of the snow snow accumulated at 1 to 3 inches per hour combined with the winding streets into low-visibility tunnels and block by block outages.
In the Northeast, a huge snowstorm was formed which combined severe bands of snow, harmful wind speeds and road closures that shook both local and international airports. Elsewhere, the area was piled to more than two feet deep, and communities along the coastline were contending with the added burden of the issue of flooding caused by the wind. The outcome was a storm that was disruptive to norms of safety practices:” a few-mile drive,” going outside without complete covers, or spending excessive time charging devices and checking on neighbors.
The snow itself was not falling evenly; was in narrow, continuous waves that can cover one place and leave behind a neighboring community. In the most spirited outbursts, lightning and thundersnow were favoured in the air, an indication that the elevation and turbulence of the storm were unusually elevated in a cold season system. The offshore intensification of the storm was also accelerating the process commonly referred to as “bombogenesis” and this process usually increases the intensity of pressure gradients and intensifies winds on the northwestern side of the storm, where heavy snow can be overlapped by strong winds. The gusts were more than 80 mph in the exposed areas of the coast, and these could bring down trees and strain power lines long before the snow load was a problem.
Being seen was a primary threat. In actual whiteout, horizon disappears and the landscape becomes featureless and people can no longer have a good visual reference point to help locate their position. The risk of being disoriented is not a feature of the backcountry environment only; it may occur on the well-known roads when a snow blown by the wind obliterates the lines of the lanes and lowers the contrast of the image. Its essence is a drastic decrease in sight and contrast and this is the reason why authorities keep on encouraging motorists to keep off the roads despite the snowfall rates starting to reduce.
At the ground level, the practical effects of the storm were of the old winter pattern but with an exaggeration. When the snow and the winds come hand in hand, the plows may find it difficult to keep pace with fresh snow filling in the tracks cleared. To rapidly respond to an emergency, empty roads are often required, and a variety of states implemented travel limits and local prohibitions to provide minimal movements. Subways complicating that issue, the lack of transportation made people with no driving desire have fewer choices.
A second source of stress was power losses. At different times, hundreds of thousands of customers in the area were left without power, and the recovery process can be slowed down by crews that cannot safely work on downed power lines or negotiate blocked streets. During cold and windy seasons the heat lost by the human body occurs at a higher rate and even a simple short-term task that is performed outside may seem to be unjustly severe, particularly to older adults and people with low mobility. This is the reason why a lot of storm safety messages stress on checking on neighbors, charging backup batteries early and maintaining an indoor plan of heat and light.
Risk does not cease with the final hefty band of snow when storms such as these start to grow weak. Snow can still cover the icy roads, visibility may still drop during gusts and isolated outages may leave the home in a “make do” mode days. The most secure practices are also not complicated: minimize unnecessary travel time, do not overstrain shoveling, be highly situational whenever wind and snow persist in their joints.
