New Yorkers may be done with winter \u2014 but winter isn\u2019t done with us.<\/p>\n
Blizzard conditions are now expected as a nor\u2019easter races toward the metropolitan area Sunday and threatens to drop as much as 20 inches in some spots, according to the latest projections from the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n
Forecasters say snow will begin moving into New York and North Jersey Sunday morning, with conditions deteriorating through the afternoon. Whiteouts and wind gusts topping 60 miles per hour are expected Sunday night into Monday morning. The agency\u2019s website warns of \u201cdangerous to impossible travel\u201d and the risk that strong winds could down tree limbs and cause power outages.<\/p>\n
\u201cVisibilities will be reduced down to a quarter, perhaps as low as an eighth of a mile at times, especially Sunday night into Monday morning,\u201d said Jay Engle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said during a briefing Saturday that snow accumulation could grow to 20 inches. He also cautioned that \u200awith daytime temperatures \u201cslipping above freezing and overnight lows dropping to the low 20s,\u201d sidewalks and streets would be dangerously icy, perhaps \u201c\u200aeven more hazardous conditions than we faced the last time around.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayor said he will make a decision on in-person instruction at city schools by noon Sunday, but said city agencies are making changes ahead of the storm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have brought in outside mechanical snow clearing equipment ahead of the snowfall, an unprecedented early activation of this resource,\u201d Mamdani said. He added that the city is \u201cexpanding geocoded tracking of bus stops, crosswalks, and pedestrian ramps\u201d and mandating that \u201ca path of at least four feet must be cleared across all sidewalks to accommodate wheelchairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The region has just emerged from a historic storm and grinding stretch of freezing cold<\/a> that left two dozen people dead from exposure. Questions still remain about what the city might have done to better protect its most vulnerable<\/a> residents.<\/p>\n A Code Blue will go into effect early Saturday evening, meaning homeless outreach efforts will run around the clock with warming buses, hospital-based warming spaces and school warming centers opening across the city.<\/p>\n The city will also halt homeless encampment sweeps during the storm, Mamdani said, as outreach workers focus on \u201cgetting homeless New Yorkers inside.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the extended freeze earlier this month, he said, the city has learned it needs to have \u201ca multiplicity of options that we were putting forward \u2026 because the same New Yorker who may be resistant to getting on a warming bus, may be willing to get into a [Health and Hospitals] warming center.\u201d<\/p>\n