A fast-moving winter storm was expected to hit the US Northeast early on Tuesday, possibly dumping as much as 20.32 centimeters of snow on New York City before moving north later in the day.
“It’s going to be low visibility, high wind gusts and end by early afternoon, as well as up to 2 feet of coastal flooding along vulnerable shorelines. We’re taking this storm extremely, extremely seriously,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference Monday.
In New York, temperatures were not expected to dip much below freezing, raising the prospect of heavy and wet snow that is difficult to shovel off sidewalks and plow off roadways, said Bob Oravec, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
New York City public schools will close on Tuesday, with classes held remotely for the more than 900 000 students in the nation’s largest school district, Adams said on Monday.
“Our schools are still in session, just differently. And so the long gone are the days of just a snow day and everybody just has off. So we’re going to have a big snowstorm, most likely. But our students, we expect for them to be fully engaged,” New York City Public Schools Chancellor David C. Banks said.
The city also issued a travel advisory, asking residents to stay off the roads on Tuesday so snowplows can keep them clear. Strong winds, up to 64 kilometers per hour and coastal flooding were also forecast along the New England coast, as well as the Jersey Shore and Long Island.
