{"id":486013,"date":"2026-02-23T17:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/486013\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T17:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T17:24:13","slug":"new-york-mayor-zohran-mamdani-orders-citywide-shutdown-as-snowstorm-hits-weather-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/486013\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani orders citywide shutdown as snowstorm hits | Weather News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city\u2019s entire traffic network has been shut down except for emergency travel as a severe snowstorm hits northeast US.<\/p>\n

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Published On 23 Feb 202623 Feb 2026<\/p>\n

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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has declared a state of emergency, ordering the shutdown of the city\u2019s entire traffic network for all but emergency travel as a severe snowstorm hits the northeast United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cNYC, we\u2019ve declared a local state of emergency ahead of this blizzard. Stay safe, New York,\u201d he posted on X late on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service (NWS) warned that a severe winter storm would bring heavy snow, strong winds, and coastal flooding from the coastal mid-Atlantic to Maine through Monday.<\/p>\n

Snowfall rates of up to 3 inches (7.6cm) per hour will occur at times, with snowfall totals as high as 12 to 24 inches (30.5-61cm), resulting in \u201cnearly impossible travel conditions\u201d, the NWS said. Gusts of up to 60mph (100km\/h) were likely late Sunday and into Monday, it added.<\/p>\n

\"WorkersWorkers clear snow from a street in New York City [Jeenah Moon\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

Power outages are also anticipated due to strong winds combined with the weight of heavy, wet snow, it added. As of 7:30pm on Sunday (00:30 GMT on Monday), at least 22,895 customers were without power in the state of New Jersey, according to tracking website poweroutage.us.<\/p>\n

Blizzard warnings have been issued by the weather service in New York state\u2019s NYC and Long Island; Boston, Massachusetts; as well as coastal communities in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Rhode Island. Emergency declarations were issued in New York and New Jersey in advance of the storm, as officials mobilised readiness efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a while since we\u2019ve had a major nor\u2019easter and major blizzard of this magnitude across the Northeast,\u201d Cody Snell, a meteorologist at the NWS\u2019s Weather Prediction Center, told The Associated Press news agency. \u201cThis is definitely a major winter storm and a major impact for this part of the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The NWS in Boston warned of a \u201cPotentially Historic\/Destructive Storm\u201d southeast of the Boston-Providence corridor, writing on X that it was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about heavy snow and winds causing power outages.<\/p>\n

\"AA woman crosses Manhattan\u2019s 8th Avenue [Charly Triballeau\/AFP]<\/p>\n

On Sunday evening, the storm had already begun to hit New York, reducing visibility to the extent that the skyscrapers of Wall Street were barely visible from the adjacent borough of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

In New York, with a population of more than eight million, Mamdani said streets, highways and bridges would be shut down from 9pm on Sunday (02:00 GMT, Monday) until noon (17:00 GMT) Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York City has not faced a storm of this scale in the last decade,\u201d he said, explaining the state of emergency. \u201cWe are asking New Yorkers to avoid all nonessential travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ban will not apply to essential workers or people who need to travel due to emergencies.<\/p>\n

Brooklyn resident Brandon Smith, 33, complained that workplaces remained open, even if the roads were not.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be difficult for most New Yorkers to get around because we still have to go to work. It\u2019s unfortunate [roads] are suspended as jobs are not gonna stop calling us in,\u201d he told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

\"SnowSnow covers buildings in the Brooklyn Borough of New York [Jeenah Moon\/Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city\u2019s entire traffic network has been shut down except for emergency travel as a severe snowstorm hits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24,2986],"class_list":{"0":"post-486013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-us-canada","16":"tag-usa","17":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}