The first major snowstorm of the new year hit Massachusetts hard over the weekend, piling up more than a foot of snow in some areas and leaving over 25,000 Bay State residents without power, according to reports from The Boston Herald. The Merrimack Valley and the Worcester region were among the hardest hit, where residents found themselves navigating the aftermath without electricity as crews from National Grid and Eversource worked to resolve the outages.
The National Weather Service reported that snow intensity ramped up on Sunday afternoon, causing additional outages as winds gusted over 50 mph. By mid-afternoon, Eversource reported over 2,000 customers still awaited power restoration in their eastern Massachusetts network.
In towns like Tyngsboro, more than 3,000 customers witnessed their power flickering off in the morning, briefly returning, and then going dark again around 1:00 p.m., according to a Herald interview with a National Grid employee. The culprit: heavy snowfall weighing down power lines, aggravated by the gusty winds.
Further into the clean-up efforts, NBC Boston reported that by Monday, the number of customers without power had dwindled to around 6,000. In Tewksbury, where snow removal and outage rectifications led to a two-hour delay for public schools, 9% of residents started their week off-grid. Counties like Middlesex, Essex, and Worcester were also vying for normalcy, as main roads were gradually cleared, but caution remained for drivers on potentially icy back roads.
Haverhill, in particular, tallied 18 inches of snowfall, disabling power for many during the early hours of Sunday. Yet by Monday, most of the town's power was back, bringing reprieve to hunkered-down locals. The National Weather Service has forecasted that the weather system will continue to migrate over the Atlantic, promising clearer skies and improved conditions as the state recovers from its first significant snow test of 2024.
