Hundreds of US Flights Canceled After Winter Storm in Northeast

Approximately 1,300 flights were canceled across the United States on Sunday following a severe winter storm that pummeled New England on Saturday.

Flight tracking website FlightAware’s data shows that as of 10:30 a.m. ET, some 1,380 flights were scrapped by airlines nationwide. Another 647 delays were reported, according to the website, which also showed that about 1,200 international flights were canceled—led by China Eastern Airlines, which saw about 351 cancelations on Sunday.

Several states declared emergencies ahead of the storm, which formed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North and South Carolina and moved north, hammering Boston, Nantucket, Long Island in New York, and Maine. As of Sunday morning, at least 60,000 homes and businesses were without power in Massachusetts, data from PowerOutage.us shows.

LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City, and Boston’s Logan International Airport each saw more than 200 flights cancelations on Sunday, FlightAware data shows.

The strong weather system—dubbed “Winter Storm Kenan” by the Weather Channel—dumped more than 2 feet of snow in some areas while featuring high winds. Significantly milder weather is expected across the East Coast, including New England, on Sunday, according to a National Weather Service forecast, although temperatures in some areas, including upstate New York, dropped to single digits on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

And conditions on Nantucket, Massachusetts, improved after the storm caused significant coastal flooding in the area. The water was deep enough for two people to row a canoe along a flooded street, according to a photo posted on Twitter, and others shared videos of high water near what appear to be expensive homes.

Sections of New York City were inundated with more than 12 inches of snow, and some areas in Massachusetts saw up to 29 inches, the National Weather Service reported.

Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito on Sunday told reporters that residents should continue to stay off the roads so that snowplows can work unimpeded.

“The storm delivered just what experts predicted … with 20-30 inches, they were about right,” Polito remarked.

The weather system may have caused the death of an elderly woman who was found dead in a hotel parking lot in Uniondale, New York, said the Nassau County Police Department in Long Island in a statement to Reuters.

Officials also told the Weather Channel that an elderly man died after falling into a swimming pool while shoveling snow Saturday morning.

In all, the storm was blamed for the cancellation of more than 4,500 flights over the weekend.