Winter isn’t going quietly.
The I-95 Corridor got pummeled Wednesday with another major nor’easter — the fourth to strike the region in the past four weeks — on the first full day of spring.
Approximately 75 million people were under winter weather alerts from Indiana to Maine, and more than 4,300 flights were cancelled. At least one fatal car crash in New York and two in New Jersey were blamed on the poor visibility and slippery conditions caused by the storm.
The governors of New York and New Jersey declared states of emergency as the storm picked up in the early afternoon.
“Travel will be impacted because of the heavy, wet nature of the snow, so anyone trying to shovel out a driveway will feel like they’re shoveling cement,” said NBC News meteorologist Sherri Pugh. “Some people may have arrived to work this morning but may have trouble leaving. New York City is just now getting in the thick of it [with the afternoon commute yet to come].”
New York State police reported the storm caused a fatality after a van carrying five rolled over on the Wantagh State Parkway. The other passengers were hospitalized in critical condition, WNBC reported.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told reporters in a conference call that a bus and vehicle collided on Interstate 78 in Hunterdon County, causing the death of one person.
A motorist was also killed Wednesday in a crash involving a snow plow in Newark, New Jersey.
New Jersey Transit pulled all its buses off the roads statewide at 3 p.m. as the storm picked up and visibility dropped.
The storm is the product of a weather system that previously vexed the South: Hail in Texas on Sunday, tornadoes in Alabama on Monday, and severe storms in Florida on Tuesday, later developing into the Nor’easter blanketing the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to New England in snow.
Many in Northeast were wearily bringing out snow shovels once again. Boston — which had already dug out from under 57.2 inches snowfall this season, 15 inches more than average — is facing another 4 to 7 inches by the time the latest storm peters out Thursday morning.
This time around, the heaviest snowfall is expected between southeast Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
More than 20,500 power outages were reported across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware and Rhode Island.
New York City, where the temperatures dipped blow freezing in Central Park, is expected to get 6 to 12 inches of snow and wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour — with the worst of it expected just as the evening rush hour gets underway.
During a Wednesday morning news conference, New York Mayor Bill De Blasio encouraged workers: “If you don’t need to be out, don’t be out. And if you are at work, try to leave work early.”
Pop star Justin Timberlake took that advice and postponed a concert scheduled for Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. The “Can’t Stop This Feeling” singer said a replacement date is forthcoming.
Timberlake was still planning to perform Thursday, and New York City schools were also reopening the day after the storm. Boston schools will be closed on Thursday, however.
And by midnight, Washington is likely to double the 4 inches of snow it previously accumulated over the entire winter.
“It’s certainly been a rough winter for the Northeast,” Pugh said. “Everybody’s had a good bit of snow on this side of the country.”
Meanwhile on the West Coast, Central and Southern California were getting drenched in torrential rains, with forecasts predicting 3 to 5 inches of precipitation through Friday.
The last time the region endured four Nor’easters in such close succession was in 2015, when four storms hit between Jan. 26 and Feb. 15.