Thousands Of Outages Reported In Virginia Amid Nor'Easter Bomb Cyclone

Hundreds of thousands of residents in Virginia were already without power early Saturday (January 29) morning as a bomb cyclone continues to hit the Northeast.

PowerOutage.us reported more than 2,000 Virginia residents were without power Saturday afternoon, leading all states.

The outage total has since decreased to 1,411 as of 1:30 p.m. EST.

Massachusetts leads all states with more than 110,000 outages.

Here's a look at outages in East Coast states as of 12:00 p.m. EST on Saturday:

1. Massachusetts: 116,244 outages
2. Virginia: 2,068
3. New York: 2,346
4. North Carolina: 1,840
5. Delaware: 970
6. New Jersey: 631
7. Pennsylvania: 592
8. Maryland: 292
9. South Carolina: 265
10. Maine: 59
11. Connecticut: 39
12. New Hampshire: 2

Residents from New York City to Maine got half a food of snow overnight, while parts of Massachusetts, including Boston, were expected to get up to 24 inches, according to a National Weather Service bulletin via NBC News.

“Expect whiteout conditions and nearly impossible travel at times,” the bulletin said, adding that the Mid-Atlantic and New England coast were expected to see snow rates of up to 2 to 4 inches hourly.

Nassau County (New York) executive Bruce Blakeman told NBC New York that a snow plow operator found an elderly woman dead in her car overnight in Uniondale, however, her official cause of death has not yet been confirmed, although Blakeman said the woman likely suffered a heart attack or another sudden health event and was unable to get help while stuck in the storm.

Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island have all declared a state of emergency advising residents to stay off the roads as the storm continues.

The National Ocean Service defines a bomb cyclone, or "bombogenesis" as its commonly referred to by meteorologists, as an occurrence that takes place, "when a midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars over 24 hours. A millibar measures atmospheric pressure."

"This can happen when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, such as air over warm ocean waters," the website states. "The formation of this rapidly strengthening weather system is a process called bombogenesis, which creates what is known as a bomb cyclone."

CNN reported the nor'easter storm was expected to effect as many as 75 million people from the Carolinas to New England with heavy snow and winds at hurricane intensity expected, bringing the possibility of power outages, flooding and severe travel issues.