Nor’easter Responsible for Another Round of Power Outages

Less than a week after a massive Nor’easter knocked out power across a good portion of the Northeast, another monster storm is knocking out power in many of the same areas.

Check out what just a little bit of #snow does to branches… @NickMerianos #CTwx pic.twitter.com/0rVBNMo0bx

— WeatherNation (@WeatherNation) March 7, 2018

This one is a little different than the last, but the results are basically the same.

ROAD BLOCK – In addition to snow covering the roads, in many areas trees and powerlines are down! Drive safely, if you have to venture out tonight! #njwx pic.twitter.com/rp9zmQCIXV

— WeatherNation (@WeatherNation) March 7, 2018

Heavy Snow

Heavy snow is the reason many are losing power. What is falling out of the sky is somewhere between slush and the perfect snowball snow.

This is the type of snow that sticks to tree branches and power lines. The heavy wet nature of this snow does two things.

1. It sticks much better. As the ice crystals that make up the flakes of snow melt, the tiny water droplets that form on the edges of the crystals cause the flakes to stick together. So much more can accumulate on narrow surfaces.
2. It is much heavier. Since each individual flake has more water than a typical flake, it weighs more. This weight makes a huge difference when it comes to tree branches and power lines.

Tree branches and power lines are collapsing under the weight of the heavy snow. And this is the primary reason for all of the outages.

Outages as of Press Time

The numbers are spiking rapidly. But these were the latest at the time the article was written.

The numbers represent people without power.

• New Jersey — 346,935
• New York — 173,749
• Connecticut — 134,495
• Pennsylvania — 114,899

Now some of these outages are still from last-week’s storm, but that’s still a lot of people without power.

https://twitter.com/WeatherNation/status/971514283329597440