Alternate-side parking rules will be suspended and salt trucks will be standing by as the city braces for a Nor’easter that’s storming toward New York.
Snowfall predictions for New York City have varied widely. As of Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service was predicting 6 to 10 inches.
Mayor Bloomberg said the city is expected to get “from a little to four to six inches” of snow this weekend. The heaviest snowfall is expected to hit Gotham between 7 p.m. tomorrow and 5 a.m. Saturday.
“The good news I guess if you like snow is that we’re going to have snow,” Bloomberg said at the Department of Sanitation’s Gansevoort Street garage in the West Village.
“The better news is that if it’s going to happen, having it happen overnight Friday into Saturday is probably as good timing as we can have because the Sanitation Department then has the advantage of being able to clean the streets when there’s normally less traffic.”
One storm, barreling east from Montana, will join another, roaring up from Texas, and start pelting the city tomorrow.
The storms’ paths are still up in the air and the amount of snow will depend on where the storms converge.
“The closer to the New Jersey coastline, the bigger the storm we’ll get,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Walker.
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for the tri-state area, including the Big Apple, Long Island, the Hudson Valley, northern New Jersey, and all of Connecticut.
Parts of the New York region still cleaning up from Superstorm Sandy are bracing for a winter storm that could blanket the Northeast with heavy snow.
Suffolk County on eastern Long Island is under a blizzard watch for Friday and Saturday.
Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst says officials are concerned about the impact of the storm in areas that were hit hard by Sandy.
While New York is expected to be hit hard, Connecticut could be in worse shape.
“Certainly this will be classified as a blizzard,” sad AccuWeather meteorlogist Brian Edwards, predicting gusts up to 50 mph.
“We’re looking for snowfall of six to ten inches. When you get north and east of the city you get greater than a foot. The city is not far from the bull’s eye.”
Edwards added: “Snow could fall at the rate of an inch an hour. Further north and east, I think there’s going to be rates of up to three inches an hour.”
City sanitation workers are set to begin 12-hour shifts on Friday night, to salt and clear New York streets.
“We’re ready for it,” Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said.
For the first time, New Yorkers can go to www.nyc.gov to find which blocks have been plowed.
Bloomberg said he hopes “the forecasts are exaggerating the amount of snow.”
While alternate-side parking will be suspended tomorrow, meters will still be enforced, according to Bloomberg.
The mayor laughed when asked he’d ever ridden in a city snow plow.
“I have never ridden in a snow plow,” he said. “I do not have a Class C license so I cannot even drive one — and you don’t want me to drive one.”
ConEd reminded customers to steer clear of any power lines that might fall during the storm, and report them to the utility or cops as soon as possible.
“We’re certainly anticipating a fair amount of outages” from this upcoming storm, said ConEd spokesman Mike Clendenin.
The utility also urged New Yorkers to check their flashlights are working and have fresh batteries.
NJ Transit announced a systemwide, cross-honoring of passes ahead of the storm beginning Friday and going through Saturday.
“NJ Transit is encouraging customers to consider traveling early on Friday due to the expected impact of the storm on the evening commute. NJ TRANSIT will closely monitor the crowds at New York Penn Station, Hoboken Terminal and the Port Authority Bus Terminal and make adjustments to service as necessary.”
The agency is encouraging users to follow them @NJ_TRANSIT for the latest travel information.
The storm is already disrupting air travel.
The aviation tracking website FlightAware shows United Airlines is already canceling more than 350 flights for Friday in advance of the storm. American has scrapped 43 flights.
FlightAware shows that airports with the most cancellations on Friday are Newark Liberty, Chicago O’Hare and Boston Logan, in that order.
Additional reporting by David K. Li and AP