HARTFORD, Conn. – A mixture of rain, sleet and wet snow made a mess of highways in the Northeast on Tuesday, the first business day of the new year.
Snow amounts included 11 inches at Russell, Mass.; more than 8 inches at Litchfield, Conn., and in northwestern New Jersey, and 6 inches in New York's Catskills.
The wet mixture caused problems for highway crews.
"At this point, with the mixture of the slushy snow because the temperature is at 32 or just a little above, it is heavy snow to push off the roadway," said Jeff Adams of the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Schools closed for the day in parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and eastern New York state.
The heavy snow also snapped branches that pulled down power lines. Connecticut Light and Power Co. reported 28,827 customers without power by midmorning, most of them west and north of Hartford, according to CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross.
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