As far as winters go, this is definitely one of the worst on record, and the trend continued with Winter Storm Nika, a storm which left thousands in Pennsylvania without power and forced a state of emergency to be declared in New York.

According to The Epoch Times, the storm has dumped more than a foot of snow onto the Northeast, which caused everything from schools to government buildings to close. But what made Nika far more dangerous than the previous storms of this year is the fact that it dumped ice, as well as snow, onto everything from trees to power lines.

As an end result of this, the storm hit particularly hard -- especially in Pennsylvania, which experienced over a quarter-inch of ice dumped onto its roads, and causing almost a million customers to loser power. In response to this, Governor Tom Corbett called for his constituents to remain calm as he declared a state of emergency. "People are just going to have to be patient at this point," he said.

According to The Weather Channel, states as far away as Arkansas felt the effects of Winter Storm Nika. There were icy conditions which caused the death of at least one person on the highways. But most notably, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the state of New York, as he deployed more than 3,500 snow plows to salt the roads of New York City. And even though the trains haven't been affected (or only nominally so) with the weather, more than 6,000 people are without power in the state as of this writing.

Governor Chris Christie, as well, has declared a state of emergency for the state of New Jersey as more than 18,000 residents were stuck without power. Much of the train services have either been suspended, or are running on a "storm schedule."