‘Bomb Cyclone’: Snow and Bitter Cold Blast the Northeast

In Boston, one of the highest tides on record flooded a subway station near the New England Aquarium. Pipes cracked from New Jersey to North Carolina. Even Florida’s iguanas found themselves stunned by the cold.

From the Spanish moss-canopied sidewalks of Savannah, Ga., to icy villages in coastal Maine, emergency officials reckoned with the rages, whims and remains of a storm that shut down schools for more than a million children, flooded roadways, filled homeless shelters and forced the cancellations of thousands of flights.

Yet the storm, notable for a steep drop in atmospheric pressure that prompted some forecasters to describe it as a “bomb cyclone,” was but one act in a prolonged run of misery that had already enveloped millions of people in a wintry torment of Arctic air and snow-blown streets.

Major Developments:

• Wind chills are expected to repeatedly plunge below zero in some areas, especially in New England, for the next several days. As the storm left most of the East Coast behind on Thursday, utility companies scrambled to restore electricity to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Read more on how power companies have warned of possible fuel shortages to come.