After the blizzard, the big chill as the US East Coast digs out

People walk through New York’s Times Square during a snow storm on Saturday. Pic/AP

Gusty winds and falling temperatures have plunged the East Coast into a deep freeze as people dig out after a powerful nor'easter dumped mounds of snow, flooded coastlines and knocked out power to tens of thousands.

Dangerous wind chills were expected to fall below zero across the region on Sunday after the storm dumped snow from Virginia to Maine. Philadelphia and New York had plenty of snow, but Massachusetts bore the brunt of the storm, with the town of Sharon getting more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of snow before the storm moved out.

The wind continued raging as over 100,000 lost power, mostly in Massachusetts, hampering crews' ability to work on overhead lines. No other states reported widespread outages.

Winds gusted as high as 83 mph (134 kph) on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It scoured the ground bare in some spots and piled the snow into huge drifts in others. Coastal towns flooded, with wind and waves battering North Weymouth, south of Boston, flooding streets with a slurry of frigid water, according to video posted on social media. Other videos showed a street underwater on Nantucket and waves crashing against the windows of a building in Plymouth.

Forecasters watched closely for new snowfall records, especially in Boston. The Boston area's modern snowfall record for a winter storm is 27.6 inches (70 centimeters), set in 2003. The city tied its record for biggest single-day snowfall on Saturday, with 23.6 inches (60 centimeters), the National Weather Service said.

Climate change, particularly the warming ocean, probably influenced the strength of the storm, atmospheric researchers said. Much warmer ocean waters "are certainly playing a role in the strengthening of the storm system and increased moisture available for the storm," said University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Jason Furtado. "But it isn't the only thing."

Storm kills 4 in Europe

A powerful winter storm swept through northern Europe over the weekend, killing at least four people, destroying houses and cars, closing bridges and causing flooding and halting transport while leaving thousands of households without electricity. Storm Malik was advancing in the Nordic region on Sunday, bringing strong gusts of wind, and extensive rain and snowfall in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

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