Millions Hunker Down As Winter Storm Hits Eastern US And Canada - UrduPoint

Millions across America's east coast and Canada's southeastern provinces hunkered down as a major winter storm continued Monday morning, disrupting travel and cutting power to thousands of homes.

About 215,000 American customers were without power at 1:00 pm EST (1700 GMT), according to the website PowerOutage.us, with the largest concentration in the southeastern states of North and South Carolina and Georgia.

Nearly 1,600 flights within, into or out of the United States were canceled by lunchtime Monday, in addition to the 3,000 the day before, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

Large swaths of the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario remained under winter storm or blizzard warnings, according to a Canadian government website.

In Toronto, up to two feet (60 cm) of snow were expected -- "a historic storm for the city," tweeted Anthony Farnell, chief meteorologist of Canadian tv channel Global news.

Many schools were closed and school buses were not operating in Quebec and in the south of Ontario, including the Toronto area.

Students had been due to return to class-rooms on Monday in both provinces after the holiday break.

The US National Weather Service (NWS) said earlier it expects the storm to "slowly wind down today," but that snow will continue to fall through the evening in upper New York and New England.

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• FLOODS - FIRES - HEAT - DROUGHT - SNOW

• Miles de personas quedaron a oscuras tras el paso de dos tornados en la zona de la bahía de Tampa, dejando viviendas y vehículos destruidos. En el este, los vientos y la acumulación de nieve dejaron sin electricidad a muchos y colapsaron carreteras.