Hundreds of flights have been grounded across the United States due to a pair of winter storms that left more than a foot of snow in New York’s Hudson Valley and prompted blizzard warnings across the Great Plains.
The first storm continues to bring heavy snow Sunday to Boston and New England, the National Weather Service said. Regions north and west of New York City, including the upper Hudson River Valley, received 6 to 12 inches of snow.
“Poughkeepsie, they lifted their foot,” said Greg Carbin, branch chief of the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. “Orange County, New York, they have a solid footing there. Port Jervis got 13 inches.”
New York City was spared the worst of the weather, as Manhattan’s Central Park received mostly rain.
As the storm in the east moves away until Sunday, a second is moving through western states, prompting winter storm warnings and weather advisories from Arizona to Illinois and a blizzard warning in New Mexico and Colorado.
The two systems have contributed to 692 flight cancellations across the United States as of early Sunday, with Boston, Newark, Seattle and Chicago hardest hit, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking company.
Passenger airline Amtrak has canceled some trains to Boston, as well as through the Midwest.
Additionally, about 11,800 customers were without power in Massachusetts, primarily in Middlesex County, north and west of Boston, according to PowerOutage.us.
New York’s Central Park received just 0.2 inches of snow as of 7 a.m., meaning its record for the longest streak without at least an inch of snow stands, Carbin said.
As of Saturday, Manhattan had gone 692 days without at least an inch of snow, breaking the previous mark of 383 days that ended March 21, 1998, according to the weather service.
Looking ahead, the westerly storm is likely to bring heavy snowfall to the Midwest, including 9 inches just west of Chicago Monday night through Tuesday, and flooding across the eastern U.S. as that the downpours fall on the melting layer of snow.
Parts of New York and New Jersey that received a lot of snow through Sunday will get 1 to 3 inches of rain between Tuesday and Wednesday, Carbin said. “That’s not going to do anything to help the streams and rivers,” he said.
Carbin said the snow will taper off in upstate New York in a few hours and continue in Boston and New England for the rest of Sunday.