Northeast braces for massive snowstorm, de Blasio warns New Yorkers
The New York City area was placed under a 35-hour blizzard warning beginning Monday afternoon, with more than 2 feet of snow expected to create “paralyzing, crippling” conditions, forecasters said Sunday.
It’s part of a storm system that’s expected to pour down on the Northeast from Philadelphia all the way to northern New England with potentially “historic” snow accumulations well into Tuesday night.
The northeast prepares for a massive snow storm
Public domain image/Wikimedia Commons
“This literally could be one of the top two or three largest storms in the history of this city,” Mayor de Blasio said at a Sunday news conference detailing storm preparations…Don’t underestimate this storm,” he said. “Prepare for the worst.”
The National Weather Service estimated that 29 million people will come under the blizzard warning, which covered a 250-mile stretch of the Northeast. Almost 1,900 flights scheduled for Monday were canceled, and almost 1,800 for Tuesday were postponed ahead of time.
The worst of it will be late Monday through Tuesday night, with blizzard conditions, damaging wind gusts to possibly hurricane strength and coastal flooding, the National Weather Service said.
The nation’s largest city was put under an extraordinarily long blizzard warning stretching from 1 p.m. Monday to midnight Tuesday.
Boston is expected to get 18 to 24 inches of snow, with up to 3 feet west of the city, and Philadelphia could see 14 to 18 inches, the weather service said.
“We do anticipate very heavy snowfall totals,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the weather service in College Park, Maryland. “In addition to heavy snow, with blizzard warnings, there’s a big threat of high, damaging winds, and that will be increasing Monday into Tuesday. A lot of blowing, drifting and such.”
Wind gusts of 75 mph or more are possible for coastal areas of Massachusetts, and up to 50 mph further inland, Oravec said.
The forecast means New York City could smash its one-day snowfall record — 26.9 inches, recorded in Central Park in February 2006.
NOAA radar of the 2012 snowstorm
