Snowiest month on record as 1,600 flights cancelled

The US northeast struggled to dig out yesterday from another major winter storm that made February the snowiest month in Boston’s history, but bitter sub-zero cold and huge drifts hampered the effort.

Blizzard conditions forced the cancellation of more than 1,600 US airline flights, most of them into and out of airports in Boston and New York, where wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour (97 kph) were predicted.

Temperatures are 25 to 30 degrees below normal for the east coast, exacerbated by strong winds, said meteorologist Bruce Sullivan of the National Weather Service, adding that the region was in the grip of “a brutally cold air mass”.