CONCORD, N.H. — A muted version of a winter storm that has killed more than a dozen people across the eastern half of the country plodded across the Northeast on Thursday, trapping airliners in snow or mud and frustrating travelers still trying to return home after Christmas.
The storm, which was blamed for at least 16 deaths farther south and west, delivered plenty of wind, rain and snow to the Northeast when it blew in Wednesday night. Lights generally remained on and cars mostly stayed on the road.
By afternoon, the precipitation had stopped in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts, though snow continued to fall in upstate New York and northern New England. Parts of New Hampshire expected as much as 18 inches.
Dale Lamprey, who was clearing off the sidewalk outside the legislative office building in Concord, already had several hours of shoveling under his belt by 8:30 a.m. Thursday and didn’t expect it to get much better.
“I’m going to be shoveling all day, just trying to keep up with the snow,” he said. “Which is impossible.”
The Northeast’s heaviest snowfall was expected to be in northern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and inland sections of several New England states before the storm heads into Canada today, National Weather Service spokesman David Roth said.
While the East Coast’s largest cities — New York, Philadelphia and Boston — mostly saw high winds and cold rain, other areas experienced a messy mix of rain and snow that slowed commuters and those still heading home from holiday trips. Some inbound flights were delayed in Philadelphia and New York’s LaGuardia, but the weather wasn’t leading to delays at other major East Coast airports.
On New York’s Long Island, a Southwest Airlines jet bound for Tampa, Fla., veered off a taxiway and got stuck in mud Thursday morning. Officials said the 129 passengers and five crew members were not hurt. Though the area received heavy rain overnight, Southwest spokesman Paul Flanigan said it wasn’t clear whether that played a role.
In Pittsburgh, a flight that landed safely during the storm Wednesday night was stuck for about two hours in several inches of snow on the tarmac. The American Airlines flight arrived between 8 and 9 p.m., but then ran over a snow patch and got stuck.
Earlier, the storm system spawned tornadoes on Christmas along the Gulf Coast, startling people such as Bob and Sherry Sims of Mobile, Ala., who had just finished dinner.
“We heard that very distinct sound, like a freight train,” said Bob Sims, who lost electricity but was grateful that he fared better than neighbors whose roofs were peeled away and porches smashed by falling trees. In Georgiana, Ala., an 81-yearold man died Wednesday, a day after a tree fell on his home, emergency officials said.
Deaths from wind-toppled trees also were reported in Texas and Louisiana, but car crashes caused most of the fatalities. Two people were killed in Kentucky crashes; a New York man was killed after his pickup skidded on an icy road in northwest Pennsylvania; and an Ohio teenager died after losing control of her car and smashing into an oncoming snowplow.
Meanwhile, the storm knocked out power to more than 7,000 homes and businesses in Maryland, and utilities were preparing for more power failures as the wind picked up.
In New Jersey, gusts of more than 70 mph were recorded along the coast, and the weather service issued a flood warning for some coastal areas.
Storm-weary coastal communities in southern New Jersey awoke to more flooding Thursday, with high tide driving waters that lapped the bumpers of firetrucks and sent debris and at least one refrigerator floating down submerged streets.
“This is worse than normal,” said Paul Daley, acting director of the Office of Emergency Management in Toms River, where some low-lying areas were awash with waters that he guessed reached a depth of 3 feet.
Daley said no evacuation orders were given, but people in affected areas, like Silverton, East Dover and Green Island, were urged to move their vehicles to higher ground and stay with friends or family until the water receded.
Photos posted to socialmedia sites showed streets turned into rivers in other communities too, among them Ship Bottom, North Beach Haven, South Seaside Park and Lanoka Harbor. In Brick Township, the emergency-management office closed access to the township’s part of the barrier island because of flooding and high winds. High tide for the ocean was at dawn, and for the bays around 11; by early afternoon, the floodwaters begun to recede.
Sgt. Keith Reinhard of the Brick Township Police Department said areas that usually received flooding saw waters slightly higher than normal, but that as far as he could tell, only streets, rather than homes, were affected. Yet Daley, of Toms River, said several homes being rebuilt and renovated from damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy took on water again.
He also said it was the second time since that storm that the floodwaters had reached such unusual heights.
“It may be because there’s so much garbage and sand in the inlets,” he said. “Nobody really knows why.”
There were about 800 power failures in Vermont, but only a handful in neighboring New Hampshire.
Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were urged to avoid it.
Few truckers were stopping into a TravelCenters of America truck stop in Willington, Conn., near the Massachusetts border early Thursday. Usually 20 to 30 an hour stop in overnight, but high winds and slushy roads had cut that to two or three people an hour.
“A lot of people are staying off the road,” said Louis Zalewa, 31, who works there selling gasoline and staffing the store. “I think people are being smart.”
Information for this article was contributed by Holly Ramer, Jennifer Peltz, Jim Van Anglen, Kelly P. Kissel, Ben Nuckols, Dave Porter, Dave Gram and Janet McMillan of The Associated Press and by Cara Buckley of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/28/2012