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Photographer: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
(Bloomberg) — Across New York City and the Northeast, 30 million people are under blizzard warnings from a powerful winter storm that threatens to drop heavy, wet wind-blown snow by the foot starting Sunday and has already grounded more than 1,000 flights. All kinds of travel are expected to be near impossible and the system may lead to widespread power outages.
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The National Weather Service updated its forecast on Saturday afternoon calling for a long stretch along the East Coast to get up to 20 inches (50.8 centimeters). Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned New Yorkers the blizzard may be more dangerous than a storm that hit the city in late January.
“I am asking all New Yorkers to stay inside and stay off the roads for your safety,” Mamdani said at a news conference Saturday. “These have the potential to be even more hazardous conditions than we faced the last time around.”
New York subway trains may run with delays and the Long Island Railroad will run on a weekend schedule Monday, Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Janno Lieber said. New Jersey also declared a state of emergency and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont urged people to stay off the roads Sunday night through Monday morning.
The blizzard warning stretches from Virginia to Massachusetts, including New York, Newark, Providence and Boston. More than 1,097 flights for Sunday and Monday have been canceled, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking service. The majority are at New York’s airports, along with Boston, Newark and Atlanta.
The storm is forecast to strengthen so quickly Sunday — with its central pressure, a measure of strength, dropping 24 millibars in 12 hours — that the US Weather Prediction Center is calling it “a super bomb,” said Brian Hurley, a senior branch forecaster at the agency.
“It is a true nor’easter,” Hurley said. “It is going to stay awhile, too. It is going to hang around for much of Monday.”
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New York City officials will deploy 2,600 sanitation workers in 12-hours shifts as snowfall begins Sunday morning, though there “will be no cleanups over the course of this storm,” Mamdani said.
“Our focus over the course of this storm is not going to be on physical infrastructure,” he said. “It’s going to be on people getting homeless New Yorkers inside.”
With temperatures near freezing, the snow will be wet and heavy. Combined with winds gusting as high as 55 miles per hour, it’s almost certain to topple power lines and trees, causing outages.
