美国东部遭遇特大暴雪

One of the worst US blizzards² in decades is continuing north, with parts of New England likely to record up to 16in (41cm) of snow.

美国数十年间最大的一场暴雪正在持续向北推进，新英格兰州部分地区降雪量可达15英寸（41厘米）。

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The storm has affected around a quarter of the US population

Long Island has suffered whiteout conditions and New York City saw nearly 11in of snow by Sunday.

The slow-moving monster - known as a nor'easter - has sprawled蔓延 500 miles (800km) over a dozen states, affecting about a quarter of the US population.

It has sparked emergencies in a number of states and cities.

Virginia弗吉尼亚, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Delaware美国东部之州, along with Washington and Philadelphia, at some stage all declared them.

Stranded⁵ train

Blizzard¹ warnings are still in place in some parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Washington DC earlier saw the largest snowfall ever recorded in a single December day and southern New Jersey⁶ its highest single-storm snow in almost four years.

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty expressed confidence that most city streets would be cleared by Monday.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said thousands of workers were out clearing streets on Sunday.

He remained upbeat, saying the snow fell too late on Saturday to affect Christmas trading severely⁷.

"Hopefully, we'll have a little bit of a white Christmas," he said.

Some tourists were happy. Briton Kevin Sanders said: "We just came off成功，发生 the Statue of Liberty when it came down last night, and look this morning. It's amazing. It gives it the Christmas feel as well."

Others suffered more difficulties - about 150 people were stranded搁浅 for five hours on a Long Island train.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled into New York airports but they are now trying to return to normal.

Airports in Washington, Baltimore and Boston were also still experiencing severe problems.