Nor'easter lashes US east with punishing rain and wind

A powerful off-season storm kept lashing the heavily populated US Northeast corridor on Sunday with wind, rain and large waves, knocking out power for thousands and killing at least one person.

Nor'easters, as storms like these are known, can cause billions of dollars in damage as they bring torrential rain, sometimes snow, strong winds and heavy storm surge flooding to large swaths of the US East Coast. This one is odd because they usually come later in the year and into the spring.

The violent weather system hit cities including New York, Boston and Philadelphia, killing at least one person and knocking out power for as many as 130,000 customers. But as of Sunday evening the lights were back on for thousands of them, according to PowerOutage.com.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said Sunday evening that after causing days of havoc up and down the East Coast, the storm was weakening, easing conditions at beaches and allowing the lifting of coastal flood warnings in parts of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. But it is not over.

"A round of heavy rain and embedded thunderstorms associated with the meandering Nor'easter is forecast to impact southern New England to the northern Mid-Atlantic through tonight and into Monday," the NWS said.

The storm's center swirled off the coast of New Jersey, but clouds associated with the storm stretched far north across New England.

Gusts were topping out around 45 mph (72 km/h), the weather service reported, down from the 81 mph that Montauk Point, New York saw earlier in the storm.

The storm was expected to float eastward before turning north over the coming days as it weakens Sunday evening.

- Days of misery -

Several local media outlets reported that a New York City public housing authority employee was killed Saturday when a tree fell on him while he walked through a parking lot.

Misery abounded at the nation's airports, with more than 500 flights canceled and nearly 6,000 delayed across the country, according to FlightAware.

Boston's Logan International Airport saw 172 cancellations as of Sunday evening -- almost quarter of its scheduled flights -- while smaller airports on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard saw nearly a third of their flights cancelled.

North Carolina's famed Highway 12, which traces the razor-thin chain of barrier islands off its coast, was washed out this week, stranding some island residents from the mainland. Images shared by the local transportation authority showed chunks of torn-up asphalt, reminiscent of earthquake damage, washed over by large waves.

The state's ferry services established an emergency route on Sunday to assist stranded residents on Hatteras Island.

Footage shot up and down the US east coast showed seaside homes battered by large waves while kayakers paddled through flooded city streets.

- Swirling clouds -

Nor'easters take their name from the wind that they bring, which usually comes from the northeast.

In satellite images nor'easters can look strikingly like a hurricane, with spiraling clouds forming over the ocean that span hundreds of miles of coastline.

But the storms are different in how they are formed.

Whereas hurricanes largely form during the warm late summer and early autumn months and draw energy from warm tropical water, nor'easters are more common between September and April and are fueled by the mixing of cold Arctic air blowing from Canada with the relatively warm air found over coastal Atlantic waters.