NYC Weather: Snow and Sleet Could Cause Havoc for Travelers

NEW YORK — Bundle up, New Yorkers, because it’s official: Winter has arrived. A storm delivering up to a foot of snow to parts of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey is expected to land in the region on Sunday and continue through Monday night. New York City officials have warned that the storm will affect people’s travels home after the Thanksgiving holiday and will make for a messy Monday commute. New York City and Long Island are expected to see about 3 to 6 inches of snow. Travelers flying to Newark, La Guardia and John F. Kennedy airports can expect delays of between one to two and a half hours. “I urge you to take extra precautions when traveling. You could face messy conditions on Sunday, so exercise caution and give yourself lots of extra travel time,” Deanne Criswell, the city’s emergency management commissioner, said in a statement on Saturday night. “For Monday’s commute, I encourage you to use mass transit where possible as the roads could look different from when you leave home in the morning.” The National Weather Service predicts that a wintry mix of snow and freezing rain will hit midday Sunday before turning into rain later in the afternoon. By midday Monday, the rain will turn to snow, forecasters said. Early Sunday, the icy conditions were already causing some travel mishaps. At Buffalo Niagara International Airport, a Delta Air Lines plane flying in from La Guardia Airport slid off the taxiway because of ice, according to local news reports. No injuries were reported. The National Weather Service has issued storm warnings for much of the lower Hudson Valley, southern Connecticut and northeast New Jersey, which could see 1 to 2 inches of snowfall per hour for parts of Sunday and Monday. “We want everybody to take it safe today before the worst of it hits us,” said New Jersey Gov. Philip D. Murphy at a news conference Sunday morning. Travelers should not expect any major issues with New Jersey Transit, according to the state’s Department of Transportation. But the roads are expected to be icy on both days of the storm. Officials have also warned that coastal parts of Long Island and Connecticut could experience up to 2 feet of flooding during high tides. In preparation, the New York City Department of Sanitation has deployed 705 salt spreaders across the five boroughs and will send out 1,500 plows Monday if more than 2 inches of snow accumulates on the streets. The sanitation department issued a snow alert beginning at 3 a.m. Sunday. Because the storm will bring rain and the temperature is hovering around freezing, it is “a very difficult storm to prepare for,” Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner, said at a news conference Saturday. “We really want people to be paying attention to the weather forecast, because this is something that could change quickly.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times . ]]>