A ‘bomb cyclone’ storm is about to blast the east coast

Walker noted that the combination of high winds and sustained rain, which softens the ground, could cause trees to fall and power outages.

“Riley will be a Nor’easter with major impacts on many different scales across a large area”, Tom Niziol, an expert on winter storms with the Weather Channel, told Business Insider in a statement.

A six-year-old boy was killed after a falling tree struck him while he was sleeping in his home in Chesterfield County, Virginia, according to authorities cited by AFP.

Disruptions from the storm were extensive.

According to FlightAware, there were 995 delays within, into, and out of the United States by 11:00 a.m. on Friday morning.

Residents in higher elevations in Sullivan and Ulster counties could get a little more than a foot of snow on Friday, meteorologists said Thursday.

Southwest cancelled 10 flights, including one of Los Angeles.

Dulles airport also briefly evacuated its control tower due to high winds. “Normal operations expected to resume shortly”. Wind gusts on Nantucket Island clocked in at 89 miles per hour, the Weather Channel reported. The airport in Northern Virginia has runways that are more closely aligned with the gusty winds that were kicked up Friday by the nor’easter.

The National Weather Service warned that the next high tide around noon EST (1700 GMT) would bring renewed flooding, with a surge of up to 3 feet (0.9 m) and waves of up to 25 feet, and a warning was in effect for virtually the entire New England coastline.

Coastal flood watches and warnings were issued by the National Weather Service from southern ME to North Carolina as major coastal flooding is expected.

MA emergency officials warn of a “potentially life threatening situation” and the NWS water-level forecast shows a record 15.4 ft of water could flood Boston Harbor. Sunday will be mostly sunny and cool with temperatures in the upper 40s to near 50.

Potentially vulnerable areas include, Lower New York Harbor and the Bays of Long Island.

The severe winter weather has already pounded an area stretching from OH to NY and Washington, D.C. and as far south as North Carolina.

The heaviest snow totals will be in central and western NY from Albany to Buffalo. Buffalo picked up more than 18 inches in 24 hours.

“The snow is pretty wet and heavy”.

Jim Hayes, a meteorologist with the agency’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said that snow and rain are forecast to taper off through Friday night and into Saturday as skies clear.