About 400,000 customers were still without power Friday in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont after powerful storms brought spring snowfall to northern New England.
Here are the main things you need to know on Friday:
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The peak of the nor'easter was nearly over by Friday morning. The National Weather Service said it expects the storm to gradually weaken over the weekend but “will take time,” with widespread wet snow mixed with rain expected to continue in lower elevations through Friday. Approximately 4 to 8 inches of fresh snow could accumulate in some areas.
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Power was slowly being restored across the region after the storm knocked out power to nearly 500,000 customers. But as of Friday morning, progress was slow, with more than 280,000 customers still without power in Maine, according to PowerOutage. We; over 100,000 in New Hampshire and about 15,000 in Vermont.
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More than a foot of snow fell across much of the region. In York County, Maine, just south of Portland, National Weather Service observers reported temperatures of nearly 20 inches as of Thursday night.
Meteorologist David Ross of the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said the region is expected to experience prolonged storms.
“For the most part, nor'easters just move steadily along the coast,” he says. “It's not a good idea for this to be stagnant for a few days because it also comes with the threat of coastal flooding.”
Air travel was also suspended. More than 400 flights within and to and from the United States were canceled as of Thursday afternoon, according to FlightAware. Many of them were in Boston. That number had jumped to 500 by Friday morning. More than 8,500 flights were delayed.
Some New England residents may be caught off guard by a nor'easter, just days after Easter break and during spring break in many school districts, but Rodney Chai, chief meteorologist at the Burlington Weather Bureau in Vermont, said: he said this week. It was not unusual for it to snow in April.
“People may be a little shocked because we've had some nice spring-like weather and this winter has been unusually warm,” he said. “People may have gotten a little too comfortable.”
But conditions are improving in time for Monday's solar eclipse, which is expected to be in the mid-50s and clear across northern New England.