With a million people in the dark and hundreds of trees around Philadelphia blown down, the latest winter storm looked a lot like Superstorm Sandy. "This damage is very similar to what we see during hurricanes." Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher told the AP.

After two brutal ice storms in a row, Pennsylvania and the East Coast could use a break. But another big storm is coming. How bad will it be?

A Philadelphia meteorologist says the "megastorm" predicted by computer models and shown on several recent maps by the WeatherBell company won't really be a "megastorm" after all.

"It seems highly unlikely now of happening," writes John Bolaris, the weatherman for Philly.com. "Computer models were having difficulties with the timing of phasing from the get-go, that's why the wild fluctuations in projected outcomes."

Power was out at 849,000 households in and around Philadelphia last night, and heaters that rely on electricity were also down as temperatures dropped to 20 degrees.

The winter storm named "Nika" did drop a foot of snow in at least three spots in Pennsylvania—Sayre, Troy, and Reynoldsville—joining Massachusetts, New Hampshire, western New York, Vermont, Kansas, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming in the "12 inches or more" snowfall totals from Nika.

[Photo via Associated Press.]