(Image: Satellite imagery of the northeastern United States on October 17, 2019. Credit: NOAA GOES)A bomb cyclone that roared across the northeastern United States on Thursday caused approximately 600,000 customers to lose power in the region.
Also known as explosive cyclogenesis, this type of intense storm produced gusts as high as 100 miles per hour in Massachusetts, according to USA Today. Boston set a new record low for barometric pressure, reaching 975.3 millibars after falling 35 in 12 hours, the outlet also reported.
“Half a million people across the New England region were without power Thursday morning as a result of the storm,” the Boston Globe noted. “Authorities worked to restore lines but lingering gusts and damaged trees slowed repairs.”
The bomb cyclone also wrought havoc in Atlantic Canada, causing localized flooding and power line explosions, according to the Weather Network. Since many trees in the Maritimes still had their leaves and were already weakened by Hurricane Dorian, high winds pulled them down into power lines, a Weather Network meteorologist observed.
In Vermont, around 20,000 utility customers lost power, a spokesperson for Green Mountain Power told Vermont Public Radio. Although crews were working early Thursday morning to make repairs, high winds toppling nearby trees forced them to stop periodically, the spokesperson said.
Utilities across the region reported on Twitter that they were steadily bringing customers back online. On Thursday night, PowerOutage.us showed that nearly 140,000 customers in Maine, more than 100,000 in Massachusetts, 20,000 in Connecticut, 10,700 in New York, 9,300 in New Hampshire, and 2,700 in Vermont remained without electricity.
By this morning, the outage map had shifted to nearly 63,000 in New York and more than 110,000 in Maine.
