Ice Storm Makes Travel Dangerous in Parts of New York and New England

Officials in Vermont and Buffalo, N.Y., warned residents to stay off the roads as a winter weather system brought thick sheets of ice and snow. Tens of thousands of power customers faced outages.

Officials in Vermont and New York State warned residents to stay off the roads on Monday as a winter weather system blanketed swaths of the Northeast with thick sheets of ice and snow, creating dangerous driving conditions.

Millions of people were under warnings or advisories that extended from the Great Lakes to New England and which forecasters said were connected to the same rapidly deepening low-pressure system, one that produced a combination of freezing rain, high winds, dense fog and, in parts of the Upper Midwest, blizzard conditions. .

Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont said on social media that the ice would most likely make travel hazardous and could cause power outages, and the Vermont State Police warned residents to stay home and avoid travel on Monday if possible. Parts of Vermont and upstate New York received between a tenth of an inch and half of an inch of ice, said Brooke Taber, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Burlington, Vt.

The precipitation was expected to change back to snow by Monday night, bringing a dusting to already-hazardous roads and several inches in the mountains, according to the Weather Service.

“The roads have been very slick,” Mr. Taber said. “The ground’s been so cold.”

Emergency officials in New York State said everyone in Buffalo should stay off the road between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. because of the dangerous conditions. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said strong winds and snowfall of up to two inches an hour would create “near whiteout conditions” in some areas.

In New York, nearly 49,000 electricity customers had no power as of 5 p.m. on Monday, according to PowerOutage.com. The number in Michigan was nearly double that, with about 96,500 outages, while Pennsylvania had more than 39,000 customers without power. In New Hampshire, more than 2 percent of electricity customers (about 16,500) tracked by the website had no power.

In Michigan, northern parts of the Upper Peninsula experienced a double dose of wintry weather as the storm moved through the region, followed by lake-effect snow on the back side of the weather system that caused blizzard conditions, said Nick Langlieb, a meteorologist in the Weather Service office in Marquette, Mich.

Snowfall totals for a few locations reached 24 inches, according to the Weather Service, which lifted blizzard warnings for the area shortly before 1 p.m. on Monday.

Part of Interstate 75 in Detroit was closed on Monday afternoon because of several automobile crashes, including at least one that involved a semi-truck, according to the Michigan State Police. Snow squalls, which can cause rapid reductions in visibility, were reported in the area.

Lake-effect snow showers were expected to continue into Monday night for northern parts of the Upper Peninsula, along with wind gusts of more than 40 miles an hour, Mr. Langlieb said.

“It was a pretty significant storm,” he said.

High winds associated with the weather system were widespread. A wind advisory was in effect for the entire New York City area through Tuesday, including New Jersey and Connecticut, according to the Weather Service, which said damaging winds were expected.

In the St. Lawrence Valley in upstate New York, gusts of 40 to 50 miles an hour were predicted into Monday night, the Weather Service said.

In Maine, as much as two inches of snow and sleet was expected, along with a light glaze of ice. Parts of New Hampshire were bracing for up to half an inch of ice.

The storm bearing down on the Northeast is a continuation of one that swept across parts of the Midwest over the weekend. The National Weather Service confirmed several tornadoes hit Illinois on Sunday, including one that damaged roofs and downed trees in Christian County.

In Hilton, N.Y., a town in Monroe County, 131 residents were evacuated from the Hilton East Assisted Living Community on Sunday night following reports of water leaks. The Hilton Fire Department said the water appeared to be coming from the roof, and was related to the significant rain and melting snow in the area.

Powerful winds and icy roads were not the only hazards. Dense fog shrouded many parts of the Northeast earlier on Monday as warmer air melted snow from the weekend and it condensed, limiting visibility in some areas to a quarter of a mile or less.

More than half of the counties in New York are under a state of emergency that Governor Hochul declared on Friday after another winter storm system brought heavy snowfall, including the heaviest snow accumulation in New York City in nearly four years.

Nazaneen Ghaffar and Amanda Holpuch contributed reporting.

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