A winter storm that brought intense winds and rapidly falling temperatures to the Northern US including New York has left more than 200,000 customers without electricity.
A weather pattern known as a “bomb cyclone” because of large drops in air pressure hit the Great Lakes region, said Scott Kleebauer, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center. “The vast majority of the power outages are from those strong winds,” Kleebauer added, noting that quick temperature reductions can also cause blackouts by freezing wet power lines.
About 95,000 homes and businesses in Michigan had no electricity at about 4 p.m. local time, according to Poweroutage.us. New York had close to 60,000 outages and Pennsylvania had about 43,000.
The holiday season has seen extreme weather disrupting travel and threatening infrastructure in the US, with severe rains bringing flash floods to Southern California and more than 1,700 flights canceled as a winter storm descended on New York.
Copyright 2025 Bloomberg.
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