185,000 without power, up to 3 feet of snow reported in nor’easter’s wake

Parts of New England and New York were digging out of a nor’easter Wednesday that caused tens of thousands of power outages, numerous school cancellations and whiteout conditions on the roads.

The storm began Monday night and lasted throughout Tuesday, dumping as much as 3 feet of snow and gusty winds. Others got just a few inches or a wintry mix. More high winds and below-normal temperatures were in Wednesday’s forecast before a warm-up later in the week.

“The storm is still centered off the New England coast and there’s still some snow showers wrapping around the backside of the system that is impacting portions of New England,” National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Pereira said. He added the system is expected to “gradually work its way off to the East.”

SCHOOLS CLOSED, POWER OUT AS WINTER STORM TEARS THROUGH NEW ENGLAND, NYC METRO

Some of the highest snow totals reported were 35 inches in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and in Ashby, Massachusetts, about 15 miles away, the National Weather Service said. At least 2 feet of snow fell in parts of northern New York and the Catskill Mountains, with Indian Lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains recording 31 inches.

“It just snowed, and snowed, and snowed,” said Geoff Settles, a supervisor at a manufacturer who lives in Peterborough. “My wife and I were helping some of the neighbors dig out. Literally, we had to shovel five and six different times just to keep it from being basically up to our chest.”

Settles, who grew up in Leominster, Massachusetts, remembered blizzards there in the late 1970s. “I would say this is the…