Blizzard warnings were issued for New York City, New Jersey and coastal communities along the East Coast on Saturday, and an approaching late-winter storm on Sunday could bring chaos to the start of the new week.
The National Weather Service has stepped up its assessment of the potential severity of the storm, which days earlier was expected to be less severe.
The weather service said 1 to 2 feet (about 30 to 61 centimeters) of snow could fall in many areas and issued a blizzard warning for New York City, Long Island, southern Connecticut and coastal communities in New Jersey and Delaware. Flooding is also possible in parts of New York and New Jersey, the weather service said.
“While we do have a number of these nor’easters with heavy snow and strong impacts, we haven’t seen a nor’easter of this magnitude across a large swath of this densely populated region in several years,” said Cody Snell, a meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology’s Weather Prediction Center.
Snell said the storm will reach the area around Washington, D.C., on Sunday morning, then move toward Philadelphia and New York City before reaching Boston by Monday night.
The weather service said the storm could start as rain in some places before worsening, with heaviest snowfall expected Sunday night, with up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow per hour in some areas, before tapering off Monday afternoon.
The weather service warned that the storm, with sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph (40 to 56 kph), “will make travel hazardous, if not impossible. Due to the snow and strong winds, tree branches may fall and power outages may result.”
The storm comes as remnants of the snowstorm that hit the area weeks ago finally melt.
Officials in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Saturday urged residents and casino visitors to stay off the streets during the storm, especially in low-lying neighborhoods prone to flooding.
“I’m probably going to go down, probably two dozen streets where we know there’s going to be water on it and there’s going to be snow on it,” said Scott Evans, the city’s fire chief and emergency management coordinator. “So you won’t see it until it’s too late, so stay home.”