Blizzard 2015 Cranks Up: What You Need to Know
If you haven't heard, there's a blizzard about to form. Hashtags are calling it: #blizzardof2015 (which was the #1 world trend this morning on Twitter!) and secondarily #Snowmageddon2015:
Here are a few things you should know this morning. The most important is that I can't guarantee this blog will always have the latest updates. Please follow our news story for new info.
WILL THIS BE THE WORST BLIZZARD EVER? Some folks are talking about "the worst storm in NYC history." This might be a little bit of a bluff, but I'll excuse it if it helps people prepare. The record storm for New York City is 26.9 inches; forecasts are in that neighborhood, so it's possible that NYC breaks their record, but a lot has to come together for the official Central Park observation location to beat it.
REMEMBER: Amounts over 30 inches between NYC and Boston are not unusual; in fact, we had 38 inches of snow with 84-mph winds in Connecticut just back in February 2013, which was the last major Blizzard in the area. You can find historical info for NYC here: BIGGEST SNOW (DAYS | DATES | STORMS | MONTHS). Here are stats from Boston (as of 2013). The image below (from yesterday afternoon) shows Boston forecast at over 30 inches.
IS THIS STORM NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT? No. This is a major storm that will bring high winds (likely sustained wind gusts near hurricane strength on Cape Cod), 2-3 feet of snow (some models have said up to 54" but this is unlikely), drifts likely over 10 feet, power outages for days, roof collapses and stranded travelers (this is all in the story link above). We need to take this seriously and I'd love to not see a repeat of Blizzard 2013 when people got stuck on the Long Island Expressway, and had to abandon their vehicles.
The AccuWeather.com forecast map as of Monday morning is shown above; the National Weather Service map below:
