As much of the Northeast is still reeling from this past weekend’s storm, forecasters are predicting another nor’easter to hit this week.
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for most of New England, including the Boston area, down to New York City. The watch will go into effect early Wednesday morning through Thursday morning.
The storm could bring heavy, wet snow and wind to those areas, potentially dropping up to a foot of snow on some parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
While you were sleeping, a Winter Storm Watch Was Hoisted for much of New England (except the SE Coast). Note that these totals will likely change some over the next 48 hours: pic.twitter.com/nQzDz9Lvau
— NWS Boston (@NWSBoston) March 5, 2018
Boston could get between 6 and 8 inches, forecasters predicted, and New York City is looking at around 7 inches, with parts of Long Island expected to get a mix of rain and snow.
Those areas might see some flurries on Tuesday, but the snow is expected to really start coming down Wednesday, beginning in the Boston area around 9 a.m. and starting in New York City in the afternoon.
The heaviest of the snowfall will happen Wednesday night into Thursday. Though the coastal flooding and high winds won’t be as severe as with the last storm, this weather could still be dangerous, forecasters warned.
“Concern with this system is it’s March so we are dealing with a heavy, wet snow,” forecasters wrote. “This may result in a risk for down tree branches/limbs yielding the potential for additional power outages.”
It’s not extremely rare for two storms like this to happen back-to-back, said National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Cadima, but still, it’s “not something that happens very often,” he said.
There are some differences between the storms. This oncoming storm is expected to be colder than the last, meaning forecasters expect more snow — whereas the last storm brought a lot of rain. Since it’s still a few days out though, that could change.
“This is all track dependent,” Cadima said. “If the track of the storm is further off shore, that’ll result in a colder solution and result in more snow in the coastal areas. If it were to track a little further west, there will be a quicker change over to rain, so less snow and [more] heavy rainfall during the late Wednesday through Wednesday night time period.”
Cadima reiterated that winter storm watches have been issued and added that another concern with this oncoming storm will be the winds.
“The winds are going to be fairly strong. Not as strong as the last one, but along the [Massachusetts] coast, we could see wind gusts from 45 to 65 mph,” he said.
The main difference with this oncoming storm will be the amount of flooding it could cause.
“Coastal flooding will not be as bad because the tides are significaly lower, so the wave action won’t be as great as the last storm,” Cadima said. “But we could see another round of minor coastal flooding with this storm as well.”
Effects of the weekend’s nor’easter
Residents throughout New England and New York are still feeling the effects of this past weekend’s nor’easter.
As of Monday morning, more than 71,000 Bay Staters were still without power, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. Gov. Charlie Baker had declared on Saturday a state of emergency for all of Massachusetts.
“At this point, we don’t know really the breadth of the damage, that’s what we’re going to really try to figure out in the next week,” MEMA Regional Director James Mannion told local officials, according to WBUR. “Damage assessment teams will be going out [Monday] to probably the top 20, 25 communities to take a sort of a quick snapshot of where the damage is, what the big ticket items are.”
The Massachusetts coast was hit particularly hard by the storm, but it’ll have some reprieve from the next as forecasters are predicting that the upcoming nor’easter will mostly miss the South Shore and Cape Cod.
Here in Scituate where the coast was hit hard by multiple major high tides. Had the opportunity to hear reports on damage, and work to restore power, and see first hand the continuing impacts from the surf. TY to all those involved in safety, cleanup and restoration efforts. pic.twitter.com/84QlHwadTD
— Karyn Polito (@MassLtGov) March 4, 2018
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had issued a state of emergency, as well. As of Monday morning, Con Edison was still reporting more than 4,000 current outages in New York City and Westchester county, but the state saw many more over the weekend.
More than 360,000 New Yorkers were without power at the height of this storm, according to Cuomo’s office, due to the strong winds, rain and snow that downed trees and power lines.
In New York City alone, that storm downed about 750 trees, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary.
Couldn’t make it up the street in LIC, Queens. #noreaster #riley #storm #nyc #NYwx ☔️ @NY1weather @StormTeam4NY @LonnieQuinnTV @weatherchannel pic.twitter.com/2jJgXczwJP
— JRosenberg (@JeremyR1992) March 2, 2018
