www.cnn.com
Nor'easter hammering East Coast with blizzard conditions, with New England bracing for the heaviest snow
A nor'easter is delivering a treacherous mix of heavy snow and fierce winds along much of the East Coast with more to come into Saturday night -- as many areas endure or await near-whiteout conditions and New England braces for what could be record snowfall.
Local
(CNN)A nor'easter is delivering a treacherous mix of heavy snow and fierce winds along much of the East Coast with more to come into Saturday night -- as many areas endure or await near-whiteout conditions and New England braces for what could be record snowfall.
More than 10 million people in some coastal areas from Virginia into New England are under blizzard warnings -- meaning heavy snow and strong winds, with predicted gusts up to 70 mph in some areas, will make for terrible visibility and dangerous travel.
Some governments in the Northeast have banned vehicle travel for parts of the day, including Rhode Island through to 8 p.m., with a tractor-trailer ban until midnight. And many are urging people to stay home.
"Hunker down for 24 hours, and sometime tomorrow, you'll be able to go back out and resume some of your normal activities," Tom Guthlein, Rhode Island's acting director emergency management, said early Saturday.
Ten inches of snow or more already had fallen in parts of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Long Island as of 10 a.m. ET. In New Jersey's Atlantic City, howling wind was whipping snow sideways Saturday morning, and a CNN crew there could barely see anything a block away.
More than 1 foot of snow could fall by Sunday morning from Long Island through Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, CNN forecasters said.
And Boston, eastern Massachusetts and parts of Maine could get more than 2 feet of snow. That could threaten Boston's one-day snowfall record -- 23.6 inches -- set on February 17, 2003. Snow could fall at rates of 2 to 4 inches per hour in some locations.
Some areas also are under warnings of coastal flooding, and facing possibility of power outages from downed utility lines.
The blizzard warnings in coastal areas from Virginia to New England excluded Philadelphia and New York City -- but snow still is hitting those cities, with nearly a foot possible in each.
Notable locations within the warning are Ocean City, Maryland; Atlantic City, New Jersey; the eastern half of New York's Long Island; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Boston; and Portland, Maine.
Nearly 55 million people, stretching from the Mid-Atlantic to New England, were under some type of winter weather alerts Saturday morning.