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BOSTON - A SNOWSTORM that blanketed parts of the US Midwest last week has barrelled into the north-eastern part of the country and neighbouring Canada, bringing snow, freezing rain and high winds that have grounded flights and made driving treacherous.
In the United States, roads were slick with snow and ice, and local airports reported hundreds of flights cancelled across New England on Sunday.
Winter storm warnings extended from Michigan and Indiana to Maine, the US Weather Channel reported yesterday
Upstate New York received up to 30cm of snow, but the storm spared New York City, leaving only a coating of icy slush.
Thousands of people were without power in New Jersey, Long Island and parts of Connecticut.
In New England, about 20cm of snow fell around Boston, though the precipitation had changed to rain across coastal areas by afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
It dropped more than 25cm of snow across parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Forecasters said high winds would continue through yesterday, and parts of northern New England could receive as much as 35cm of snow.
They warned that with sub-freezing temperatures expected overnight, much of the rain that had fallen on the region late in the day would turn to ice.
The wintry blast came a week after an ice storm in the Midwest was blamed for 18 deaths and power cuts affecting hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
O'Hare International Airport, Chicago's largest, was hit with nearly 200 cancellations on Sunday due to winter weather, a spokesman for the area airport system said.
In New England, the weekend storm did not bring the disruption of last Thursday's snowfall, which dumped about 25cm of snow across the region as millions of commuters were trying to head home.
All three major New York airports remained open, but reported significant flight delays.
Hundreds of cancellations left passengers scrambling to find alternate means of reaching their destinations.
Boston's Logan International Airport halted all flights briefly to allow officials to plough the runways, while airlines cancelled about 300 flights, said airport spokesman Lisa Langone.
By afternoon, the airport was operating two of its three runways, she said.
The Boston area typically gets about 19.8cm of snow through the entire month of December.
'At this point, fortunately, because there has been such limited travel out there - folks are listening - there really have not been any major accidents of significance,' said Mr Peter Judge, a spokesman for the state emergency services.
In neighbouring Canada, southern Ontario and Quebec provinces took the brunt of the bad weather, with Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal struggling under 40cm of snow late on Sunday.
In Toronto, the snowstorm caused some 600 traffic accidents on Sunday morning alone, the provincial police reported.
A woman was killed by a snowplough on a roadside in London, Ontario, police said.
Around 100 flights were cancelled at Toronto-Pearson and Montreal-Trudeau airports.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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