Snowstorm forces Canada's biggest airport to cancel 100 flights

Canada's biggest airport canceled more than a hundred flights on Tuesday as a late winter storm brought more snow to southern Ontario, forcing several colleges to suspend classes.

A cyclist navigates traffic after an overnight snow storm in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 14, 2017.  A house sold sign is seen after an overnight snow storm in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 14, 2017.

About 26 percent of all departures and arrivals at Pearson International Airport, which serves the Toronto area, were canceled, with affected flights "mostly those scheduled for or from areas affected by the current weather system," an airport spokeswoman said in an email.

More disruptions in Ontario were expected with Environment Canada forecasting a further 5 centimeters (2 inches) to 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow during the day.

A special weather statement had ended shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, by which time areas around Toronto had already received 20 to 30 centimeters of snow early on Tuesday, the weather department said on its website.

Sheridan College, Brock University, Mohawk College and McMaster University all in Ontario province were closed, according to a local media report.

A snowstorm hit the U.S. Northeast on Tuesday, with blizzard warnings in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Main and Vermont.

Late-season snowstorm throws U.S. Northeast for a loop

A late-season snowstorm swept the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States on Tuesday, closing public school systems from Washington, D.C., to Boston, grounding thousands of airline flights and knocking out electricity to 200,000 customers.

People walk past a pile of snow on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2017.  Ice coats a tree that had already begun to blossom for spring, as frozen rain falls on Capitol Hill, in Washington, U.S. March 14, 2017.  People walk through falling snow on Broadway during a snowstorm in the village of Nyack, a northern suburb of New York City, U.S., March 14, 2017.

Tens of millions of residents from Maryland to Maine faced a "rapidly intensifying Nor'easter" that was rare for its arrival in mid-March, just a week before the official end of winter, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The storm also capped an unusually mild winter that saw otherwise below-normal snowfalls for much of the Atlantic Coast.

Many residents heeded official advice to stay home, as temperatures plunged 10 to 25 degrees below average across most of the eastern third of the country. Snow fell from the lower Great Lakes and central Appalachians to the eastern seaboard as far south as North Carolina.

The heaviest snow, with accumulations of a foot (30 cm) or more, was reported across New England, upstate New York and parts of Pennsylvania. Gale-force wind gusts also buffeted much of the region, creating blizzard conditions.

By comparison, the nation's capital received just a few inches of snow by late afternoon, enough to delay opening of federal government offices for three hours. The storm's greater impact for Washington was perhaps that the city's celebrated cherry blossoms, a tourist attraction and an early harbinger of spring, were encased in ice.

Another rite of March, the national college basketball championship tournament, was disrupted as Tuesday's scheduled game between Syracuse University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro was postponed for one night.

Hundreds of thousands of public school students got a day off, as classes were canceled for the day in New York City, Philadelphia, northern New Jersey and Boston. Schools were to be closed again in Boston on Wednesday.

Still, the weather service dialed back forecasts for some urban areas, notably New York City, where residents had been warned to steel themselves for potentially record-breaking snow.

Only 4 inches (10 cm) fell in Manhattan's Central Park - less than forecast. By afternoon, as snow turned to sleet, city officials were anticipating Wednesday's morning rush hour would be largely back to normal and that schools would reopen.

After being canceled earlier in the day, above-ground parts of New York City's subway service and some Metro-North commuter trains to the suburbs resumed in the evening.

Train service to Boston and Albany, New York, was halted. Connecticut officials said roads there would reopen to general traffic on Tuesday evening.

Governors in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia declared states of emergency at the outset of the storm.

"Mother Nature is an unpredictable lady sometimes," the state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, said at a news conference. "She was unpredictable today."

'GHOST TOWN'

While children and dogs took to the streets to play in the snow, many New Yorkers welcomed the storm as a respite from the usual bustle of daily life.

"It's a ghost town," Ali Naji, 33, said as he sat listening to Mexican pop music amid the emptiness of his usually busy convenience store in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood.

More than 6,000 commercial airline flights across the United States were canceled for the day, according to tracking service FlightAware.com, including all of American Airlines (AAL.O) flights into New York's three major airports - Newark, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International Airport.

JetBlue Airways (JBLU.O) reported extensive cancellations and Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) canceled 800 flights for New York, Boston and other northeastern airports. United Airlines (UAL.N) said it was halting all operations at Newark or LaGuardia.

Utility companies likewise reported widespread power outages, affecting more than 220,000 homes and businesses at the peak of the storm.

The young at heart seemed to take the weather in stride. At the open-sided Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, the ice-slick marble floor served as a skating rink for some of the 71 eighth graders visiting from St. Mary's Academy in Englewood, Colorado.

Math teacher Michael Pattison, 65, rattled off a list of all the monuments and museums the students would see that day.

"This weather is not going to stop us," he said, clapping his gloved hands.

"No, it's not," a couple of students shouted back.

Source: Reuters