White alert on New York: the weather services for the northeast of the United States launched an alert for winter weather on Friday – a cocktail of snow and freezing rain which could fall on 25 million inhabitants in the coming days.
“Travel could be almost impossible”
A “winter storm” warning has been issued for the entire weekend, from Friday evening to Sunday evening. Rain, snow, ice, and black ice on the roads are expected, with possible power outages, uprooted trees, and potential chaos in road, rail, and air transport. The megacity of New York and its 8.5 million souls have not seen a significant snowfall for almost two years and the winter of 2022, when the “blizzard of the century” and more than a meter of snow in the vast state of New York had caused dozens of deaths.
For this weekend, from Boston to Washington, along the busy I-95 highway corridor, “travel could be almost impossible,” the National Weather Service (NWS) warned as millions of residents of the region have just returned from their end-of-year holiday break. The “capital” of New England, the great historic city of Boston, and corners of the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut could see up to 30 cm of snow accumulate.
The NWS, however, warned of “uncertainty in the exact path and intensity of the winter storm.” This did not prevent the governor of New York State, Kathy Hochul, from taking precautions and issuing an “emergency” bulletin calling on New Yorkers to be “vigilant”. In the United States and the rest of the world, the frequency, intensity, and unpredictability of summer and winter weather are increasing due to climate change. On September 1, 2021, Storm Ida took New York and the region by surprise and flooding caused the death of around forty people, some drowning in the basement of their homes.