Northeast Storm Live Updates: Snow Cloaks a Region and Power Failures Mount

• More than 100,000 customers of the utilities Eversource and United Illuminating in Connecticut were without power around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday. And FirstEnergy, a utility company, reported a combined 178,000 customers without service in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania at 9:30 p.m.

• Officials across the Northeast announced that their schools would be closed or would open on a delay on Thursday. For instance, public schools in places like Boston and Hartford will be closed; Newark public school officials asked students and staff members to report two hours after their normal start time. New York City schools will be open.

• Do you have a question about the causes of dangerous winter storms? Ask John Schwartz, a New York Times reporter who covers climate change and the environment, for an answer by emailing storms@nytimes.com. Here are some answers so far.

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A woman struck by lighting in New Jersey is expected to survive.

The “thundersnow” on Wednesday brought quick accumulation and excited social media activity along parts of the coast. But its accompanying lightning injured a middle school teacher in Manchester Township, N.J., who was holding an umbrella while outside on bus duty.

I apologise for the verticle video, but it came out of nowhere. #thundersnow #NorEaster2018 #NorEaster #NYC @accuweather pic.twitter.com/E1pSo5Fe6N

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Jonathan Petramala (@jpetramala)
March 7, 2018

“After the incident, she was escorted into the school building by two other teachers and taken to the nurse’s office,” the Manchester Township police said in a news release.

MARCH 7, 2018

Destinée-Charisse Royal/The New York Times

The teacher, a 33-year-old woman, was hospitalized and expected to survive.

A brief pause in business as a town prepares for 16 inches of snow.

Winter storm warnings were in effect Wednesday afternoon for much of the Northeast, including a swath from southern New Jersey to northern Maine.

The biggest snows in Massachusetts were expected in the western and central parts of the state. In Worcester, which often records the state’s highest levels of snow, businesses were closing early on Wednesday in anticipation of as much as 16 inches, but residents expressed little anxiety.

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“We’re New Englanders, we’re used to it,” said Jodi Brennan, a waitress and manager at Lou Roc’s Diner in Worcester.

She said the diner closed early to allow workers to get home before they became trapped, but it would open Thursday as usual, regardless of how much snow had fallen. “It has to be really, really, really bad for us to close — unless of course there’s no power,” she said.

But she predicted that even 16 inches would not leave much of a mark at this time of year.

“It’s going to come and go,” Ms. Brennan said, “and spring will be here before you know it.”

But even as the storm moved into New England, the Weather Service warned of “high uncertainty” in snow totals, with thin bands separating paltry dustings from major accumulations on forecast maps.

As of about 7 p.m. Wednesday, Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Taunton, Mass., said that Franklin County in northwest Massachusetts had recorded the most snowfall — around five to eight inches.

Some additional snowfall reports received as of 1045 pm. pic.twitter.com/bF1EokARgM

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NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern)
March 8, 2018

But he cautioned that the storm has “got a ways to go yet.”

“It’ll be snowing all night, and places where it’s raining, it’ll be changing over to snow,” he said.

Officials had not heard from Worcester, so Mr. Dunham said it was not clear how much snow had accumulated there.

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Coastal flooding was also possible in New England, and heavy, wet snowflakes were expected to place power lines in peril.

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