A powerful and unusual winter storm is hitting the northeastern United States, putting 59 million people under weather alerts.
Considering this, several states including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Islands have declared states of emergency and imposed travel bans.
At the same time, thousands of flights have been cancelled due to the blizzard with many others delayed.
As per multiple reports, a strong winter storm, expected to be the most powerful nor'easter in almost a decade will hit parts of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada from Sunday night to Monday, bringing heavy snowfall, strong winds and a risk of flooding along the coast.
Out of 59 million people who are currently under weather alerts, 40 million people are impacted by the blizzard warnings and another 19 million are under winter storm warnings.
Cody Snell, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center told BBC, "While we do get plenty of these nor'easters that produce heavy snow and strong impacts, it's been several years since we saw one of this magnitude across this large of a region in this very populated part of the country."
The storm has already caused widespread power outages with over 20,000 people without electricity in New Jersey and thousands more affected in Virginia, Delaware and Maryland.
On the other hand, the National Weather Service has warned that heavy snow could fall at a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour with total snowfall reaching 1 to 2 feet, which could created dangerous and almost impossible travel conditions.
