A severe Nor’easter pummeled southern New England and the New York tri-state area, bringing flooding rains, a dangerous storm surge and destructive winds gusting between 60 and 100 mph. The nor’easter knocked out power to more than half a million customers and forced school cancellations in eastern Massachusetts. Due to the storm’s pace of intensification, it was qualified as a “bomb cyclone.”

High winds and swiftly strengthening ocean storm left more than a dozen counties in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island were 75 percent in the dark, with winds gusting to 94 mph on Martha’s Vineyard. Fierce winds resulted i a 3- to 4-foot ocean surge, which was considerably more than what was anticipated.

The bulk of the outages were focused in Massachusetts, with near half a million customers in the dark Wednesday. Hardest hit was Plymouth County, which was 90 percent in the dark. Around 85,000 were without electricity in Rhode Island and another 25,000 combined in Connecticut and Maine. As of Wednesday morning, conditions were beginning to ease. Still, bands of light to moderate rain were continuing to pinwheel ashore from the east-northeast in eastern Massachusetts, along the New Hampshire Seacoast and across parts of south coastal Maine on Wednesday morning. Winds were still gusting to around 60 mph in coastal areas.