Meteorological security

The U.S. Northeast struggled to dig out on Sunday from the latest in a series of winter storms that made February the snowiest month in Boston's history, but bitter cold and huge drifts hampered the effort.

Blizzard conditions forced the cancellation of more than 1,800 U.S. airline flights, most of them into and out of airports in Boston and New York, where wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour (97 kph) were predicted.

Temperatures are 25 to 30 degrees (14 to 17 degrees Celsius) below normal for the East Coast, exacerbated by strong winds, said meteorologist Bruce Sullivan of the National Weather Service, adding the region was in the grip of "a brutally cold air mass."

Northeast hit by blizzards, cold, after record snow