A second nor’easter began barreling down on the Northeast on Wednesday, promising to snarl the evening commute with heavy snow just days after a deadly winter storm left hundreds of thousands without power.
Forty-eight million people from Maryland to Maine are facing winter storm advisories Wednesday from this nor’easter, a system that dumped major snowfall across the country since it first hit the West Coast late last week.
The new storm has already caused thousands of canceled flights and could make roads treacherous in major cities, including Philadelphia, New York and Boston.
“There are going to be more power outages. Travel is going to be a mess. This is going to be a really significant storm,” said Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel.
Related: Another nor’easter heads for East Coast
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Whereas last Friday’s storm pummeled the I-95 corridor with strong rains and winds, this time the danger comes from snow — and a lot of it. At its peak, the nor’easter is projected to dump the region with snowfall rates of up to 3 inches an hour.
Reinforced by a cold front moving offshore to the Atlantic, the storm is expected to intensify over the course of Wednesday afternoon and into Thursday morning as it moves northward.
With the storm track having shifted from original projections, part of the Philadelphia-New York corridor — one of the most populated regions in the country — could be hard hit, forecasters say. New York City is bracing for a projected 6 to 12 inches of snow, while Portland, Maine, could see as much as 18 inches.
“With this nor’easter it’s all about travel,” said NBC News meteorologist Sherri Pugh. “It’s definitely going to impact a lot of flights and (evening) commutes. Anyone traveling from anywhere in the country, anywhere through this corridor is going to be affected.”
A cascade of cancellations and delays was already being felt before the brunt of the storm. By late morning, more than 2,000 flights were scrapped at airports in Philadelphia, New York, Newark, New Jersey, and Boston. Amtrak also canceled many of its trains normally scheduled to run in the corridor between Washington, D.C, and Boston.
“Right now the runways are largely clear and we haven’t had to plow yet,” Mary Flannery, a spokeswoman for Philadelphia International Airport, told NBC News. “But a lot can change in a few hours.”
But a bigger worry is that some of the regions that are still repairing downed power lines and damage from coastal flooding from last Friday are particularly susceptible. Like the coastal town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, which faced devastating flooding after part of its seawall was demolished by last week’s nor’easter.
“The level of concern could be put in one word: gravely,” Duxbury Town Manager Rene Read told reporters late Tuesday about concerns over another direct hit.
Even though Wednesday’s storm is not predicted to bring as much flooding or strong gusts, there are worries about more strains to power lines already weakened from the heavy winds on Friday, this time from heavy, wet snowfall.
“A lot of the same places that were hit hard on Friday will have impacts from this system,” Pugh said.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 100,000 customers still didn’t have electricity, including residents in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, utility companies reported.
In the village of Mamaroneck, in Westchester County, New York, frustrations were building as parts of the area waited for power to be restored from the first wallop — while bracing for the next one.
The estimated restoration time from Con Edison “seems to be a moving target,” Mayor Tom Murphy told LoHud.com, “which is kind of disconcerting because it doesn’t inspire confidence that they have a plan.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also criticized the utility companies, vowing to review their response to the outages.