Northeast braces for more snow
Boston announces closings as another 2 feet is forecast
BOSTON – Winter-weary New England braced Sunday for another round of snow that threatened to bear down on the region into the workweek and pile up to 2 feet in some areas.
As light snow began falling by the afternoon, drivers were warned to stay off roads and cancellations were posted for schools and court dockets today.
The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for central New York, the western Catskills and much of New England through early Tuesday.
“I’m frustrated. The last thing I want to be talking about is another 24 inches of snow. I want to move on to something else,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said at City Hall. “It’s unprecedented. … Maybe up in Alaska or Buffalo, they have this amount of snow and they’re used to it.”
Walsh said the city would close schools Tuesday as well, and he urged motorists to stay off roads until the storm passes. Court closings today meant another weather-related delay in jury selection in the Boston Marathon bombing trial and in the murder trial in Fall River of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez.
The snow is likely to cause problems for workweek commuters, though it wasn’t expected to accumulate as rapidly as in earlier snowstorms, including a record-breaking late January blizzard. It also posed little risk of the coastal flooding that last month’s winter blasts brought.
Still, the steady run of winter blasts already has sucked up more than 70 percent of New Hampshire’s Department of Transportation winter maintenance budget. The next round of snow already was promising trouble Sunday.
New Hampshire state police closed parts of northbound Interstate 93 in Manchester for hours as tow trucks removed a school bus that lost control on slushy roads and rolled down an embankment. The driver was the only person on board.
Boston’s transit system, the nation’s oldest, has been particularly hard hit this winter. The buildup of snow and ice on trolley tracks combined with aging equipment has stalled trains, delaying and angering commuters. Gov. Charlie Baker acknowledged last week the MBTA was handed an extraordinary situation with old equipment but said the system’s overall performance was unacceptable.
Over the weekend, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said crews were doing everything they could, including deploying massive jet-powered snow blowers, to clear tracks before the storm. Baker said Boston’s subway lines will operate on an abbreviated schedule today and he encouraged residents to work from home and avoid travel. The MBTA said it will try to keep commuter trains on a normal weekday schedule.
Boston’s Logan International Airport will allow only a limited number of flights to arrive and depart today, so travelers should check with their airlines, Baker said. State offices will be closed today, with only emergency workers required to report for duty.