Copious amounts of snow and ice continue to smother NYC and much of the Northeast as another blizzard assaulted the besieged region. Up to a foot of snow is expected to land, prompting New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to declare a state of emergency. New York issued a hazardous travel advisory for Wednesday, and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio told residents to prepare for a difficult commute.
“I encourage all New Jerseyans to drive carefully and remain off the roads if possible so that our first responders and public safety officials can safely respond to any emergency situations,” Christie said in a written statement.
Mayor de Blasio has been excoriated by New Yorkers and the press for not being adequately prepared for the winter storms that have hit the city over the last week. The Mayor remarked in a press conference on Tuesday: “We’ve had this ridiculous run of storms the last few weeks. It would be nice if this would be the end of them this weekend.” De blasio, who at one time said that climate change is NYC’s biggest problem, further remarked, “I think I did three rounds of shoveling and three rounds of salting yesterday–this is really getting obnoxious.”
On Monday and Tuesday, the storm crushed the mid-west and the nation’s mid section. Wednesday’s precipitation is a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain and is on a path north of Washington, D.C. through New York City, with building snowfall in Boston and parts of New England. Rich Thompson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said, “It’s going to be a mess– the heavy snow is going to be up toward Boston and inland from the Coast.”
Overall, more than 2,000 flights across the Midwest and Northeast were canceled by Wednesday morning as the storm swept from central Kansas though the Ohio valley and into New England, the National Weather Service reported. In New York, northern New Jersey, Connecticut, and the lower Hudson Valley, pockets of freezing rain that began falling Tuesday night were expected to continue until at least mid-afternoon.