A bitter cold Monday morning followed a messy winter storm that dumped a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain across the state.
Temperatures at Windsor Locks dropped to minus 3 degrees Monday morning. Temperatures were expected to remain in the single digits for highs Monday and back down to zero Monday night and Tuesday morning, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Alan Dunham. He noted wind chills during the day Monday could be as low as 27 below zero and 22 below zero at night.
“It’s going to be cold all day despite the abundant sunshine,” he said.
But the cold spell isn’t expected to last long with temperatures rebounding to the lower 20s Tuesday and into the 40s Wednesday with rain.
Crews from Eversource and United Illuminating worked through the frigid night to restore power to hard hit areas like Middlefield, Durham, Hamden and other areas of southwestern Connecticut. Eversource officials said the ice and wind gusts brought down tree limbs Sunday night and early Monday morning and caused additional outages.
The number of Eversource customers without power dropped to approximately 7,000 as of noon Monday, and Eversource officials said they had been able to restore power to more than 29,000 customers since the storm began. The total number of UI customers without power declined to under 4,500 Monday – half of them in Hamden. Eversource noted they have hundreds of crews working and while “conditions outside are challenging, we will work nonstop until everyone’s power is restored.”
United Illuminating said it expects to have power to virtually all customers by midnight Tuesday morning with 400 restoration crews in the field. The company has restored approximately 23,000 customer outages and dealt with hundreds of downed wires and safety issues during the storm and its aftermath. UI noted the outages continued to mount throughout the day Sunday after the storm ended and winds picked up. Approximately half of the outages occurred after 5 p.m. Sunday.
AAA spokeswoman Amy Parmenter said their call volume “was through the roof” Monday morning with more than 1,200 calls by noon in the Greater Hartford area. She said AAA has been getting more than 200-250 calls an hour. She said the sharp increase is for dead batteries due to the cold and calls for towing. Motorists should bring necessary clothing, blankets and supplies to stay warm and safe while waiting for help to arrive, Parmenter said.
“And, of course, this is a holiday. Tomorrow will be even worse as folks try to start vehicles that have been sitting idle for three days,” she said.
According to Bradley International Airport spokeswoman Alisa D. Sisic, there were a small number of residual cancellations Monday morning as airlines caught up from the storm.
“We anticipate that their flight schedules will be fully back to normal operations later this morning,” Sisic said, adding passengers who are scheduled to travel should check with their airline.
The icy conditions were also treacherous for those working to restore power to homes. An Eversource subcontractor repairing a power line in Middletown was killed after a tree fell on him Sunday afternoon, police said.
Middletown police were at the scene of the fatal mishap, which occurred at about 3:17 p.m. on Millbrook Road. The identity of the person killed was not immediately released, and police closed off a portion of the road to continue their investigation.
Snow transitioned to sleet across the state Sunday, and temperatures are expected to drop into single digits overnight. In the late afternoon, the Hartford region also saw additional snow flurries. The National Weather Service issued a wind chill advisory, warning that the combination of high winds and bitter cold could make it feel like 25 degrees below zero in northern Connecticut, most of Massachusetts and a portion of Rhode Island. The wind chill advisory was issued shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday and was expected to stay in effect until 7 p.m. Monday.
“Right now, what we’re particularly worried about is icy conditions and what that means to the electric grid,” Lamont said. “We’ve been in close consultation with [United Illuminating] and Eversource.”
Snowfall across the state ranged from two to seven inches. The most accumulation, he said, is in East Granby.
Eversource spokesperson Mitch Gross said “it is all hands on deck” with hundreds of line workers, tree workers and support staff working through the storm. Workers are seeing tree limbs coming down on lines, weighed down by ice. Gross said a lot of the outages are along the I-84 corridor.
“We prepare for weather like this everyday and we will be busy throughout the evening and as long as it takes to get everybody back on,” Gross said.
Gross said the utility company cautions customers of downed power lines. If anyone sees downed lines, Gross said people should call 911 right away. Additionally, Gross said that homeowners with portable generators should make sure generators are as far away from homes as possible and not feeding into vents or windows. He said portable generators should have transfer switches as well. For natural gas customers, Gross said they should make sure their gas meter and vent are cleared of snow and ice, and to do so with a broom or by hand.
The governor advised residents to dial 211 for information about local warming centers.
“What we’re looking at is the possibility of a 20-degree drop in temperature between now and 6 a.m. [Monday] morning,” Lamont said. “That’s going to change the nature of the conditions dramatically, which is why it is still so important to stay off the roads.”
About 700 plows have been on state roads “around the clock,” Lamont said.
Town leaders, such as Hamden Mayor Curt Leng, are warning residents about ice-filled tree branches falling.
In a tweet Sunday afternoon, Leng said: “We are all hands on deck in Hamden and trying to get United Illuminating to get additional much needed resources to our town.”
At about 3:20 p.m., the National Weather Service canceled a winter storm warning for the region. The weather service said a wind chill advisory would be in effect from 9 p.m. Sunday to 7 p.m. Monday.
Wind gusts up to 35 mph and dangerously cold wind chills — as low as 25 below zero — could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes, the NWS said.
The state is not banning trucks from highways, the governor said. “It’s not necessary given what we see right now.”
“We’re going to get through this,” he said. “We’re hardy New Englanders.”
State Department of Transportation spokesperson Kevin Nursick said re-freezing overnight Sunday was the biggest concern.
“We’re starting to see increasing icing in locations across the state,” Nursick said Sunday morning. “Right now we have more than 700 trucks on the road, that’s DOT and private contractors as well. We’ll keep them on as long as necessary, plowing and applying material to roadways.”
Passengers who are scheduled to travel Monday are advised to check their flight’s status with the airline before heading to the Windsor Locks airport, she said. Real-time flight status updates are available at www.flybdl.org and Twitter users may receive updates by tweeting their flight number @BDLFlightInfo.
Gary Lessor, chief meteorologist at Western Connecticut State University’s Weather Center, warned of bitterly cold temperatures Monday.
“The worst of the precipitation is over, but obviously the damage is done,” Lessor said Sunday.
Temperatures could reach as low as 5 degrees below zero, Lessor said, with wind chill values between 15 and 25 degrees below zero.
Lessor said another wintry mix is expected Wednesday, with lots of rain on Thursday.
Courant staff writers Christine Dempsey, Nicholas Rondinone, Kenneth R. Gosselin, Edmund Mahony, Stephen Singer and Jordan Otero Sisson contributed to this story. A report from the Associated Press also was included.
Mikaela Porter can be reached at mmporter@courant.com.
