Blizzard Warnings Issued for Swath of East Coast, Including NYC

The blizzard warnings are the first since 2017 for New York City. Forecasters said the city is expected to get up to 18 inches of snow, with two feet possible.

A fierce storm was poised to blast the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast with heavy snow and strong winds Sunday into Monday, leading forecasters to issue blizzard warnings for much of the coastal Northeast, including New York City, which faces as much as two feet of snow.

The storm is expected to bring heavy snowfall, strong winds and blizzard conditions from Delaware to southern Connecticut, the National Weather Service said on Saturday.

Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center, said the winds will bring the blizzard conditions but also “create other problems, including moderate to major flooding and high surf at the coast.”

He also said there could be widespread power outages with Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts at the highest risk.

The blizzard warnings were in place for nearly 30 million people from Sunday morning until Monday afternoon, with the heaviest snowfall — one to two inches per hour, if not more — expected by Sunday night, the Weather Service said.

Forecasters warned travel will be “dangerous, if not impossible” on roads, as it became clear that the Monday morning and evening commutes will be messy in the big cities, from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, to New York City to Boston.

As of Saturday night, more than 3,500 flights across the United States were being canceled for Sunday, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.

It’s the first blizzard warning in Manhattan in nine years.

This is the first blizzard warning issued for New York City since 2017, according to the Weather Service.

There was also a blizzard warning for the city the year before, in 2016, when a record-breaking snowstorm dumped an accumulated 27.5 inches of snow onto Central Park — the largest since records began in 1869.

The city has not experienced near-blizzard conditions in four years. But in the coming days, New York City as well as Long Island, northeast New Jersey and coastal and southern Connecticut could get 15 to 20 inches, or more, of accumulated snow, the Weather Service said.

Sustained winds of 25 to 35 miles per hour were also expected, and the Weather Service warned that the wind, combined with snow loads, could down tree limbs and cause power outages.

There is also a risk to waterfront areas: Parts of coastal New Jersey and New York were placed under a flood watch starting Sunday evening.

The Weather Service warned that roads could become impassable and that low-lying buildings near the waterfront were at risk of moderate flooding. Cars parked near the immediate waterfront could be submerged, it said.

Unlike January’s storm in New York, which was heavily advertised for a week in advance, the incoming storm will be windier and the snow wetter.

“This is going to be heavy stuff for the people who have to shovel,” Mr. Hurley said.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference on Saturday that sanitation workers were loading up more than 700 salt spreaders, and mounting plows on 2,200 vehicles.

A fleet of 2,600 workers, including 1,000 emergency snow shovelers, will take to the streets early on Sunday and work through the day as the weather intensifies, he added.

He said the city will be counting on everyday New Yorkers and will even pay them to join the cleanup. As the snow begins to fall on Sunday morning, residents will be able to show up at their local Sanitation Department facility and sign up.

“For those who want to do more to help your neighbors, earn some extra cash, you too can become an emergency snow shoveler,” he said.

The storm will hit Washington, D.C., first with rain and snow.

Forecasters are calling this system an intense and classic nor’easter: a storm that develops off the Mid-Atlantic and rapidly intensifies near the coast, delivering punishing northeast winds and blowing deep snow into coastal northeast cities.

In this case, the storm is predicted to develop off the coast of the Carolinas overnight, and then move northward, staying offshore but hugging the coast.

By early Sunday morning, it will be off the coast of the Mid-Atlantic and rapidly intensify.

When storms strengthen, their barometric pressure drops. If the pressure drops 24 millibars in 24 hours, the storm is considered a bomb cyclone. Mr. Hurley said that with this system the pressure is predicted to drop 24 millibars in less than 12 hours.

Washington, D.C., will get hit with some of the first heavy precipitation early on Sunday morning. Initially, the precipitation will fall as a mix of rain and snow, before transitioning to snow by midday. Washington is expected to record up to five inches of snow.

Snowfall totals are expected to be higher the farther north you go.

Philadelphia is predicted to get up to a foot of snow. A winter storm warning was issued for the city from Sunday morning to Monday night.

Light snow showers could start falling in New York City before the sun rises on Sunday with snowfall rates picking up in the early afternoon and the heaviest snow falling Sunday evening into Monday morning.

The Central Park weather gauge is forecast to record 18 inches of snow, but James Tomasini, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Upton, N.Y., said that up to two feet is possible.

Mr. Tomasini said the snowfall totals in New York are dependent on how close the storm gets to shore. The closer it gets, the higher the totals.

In Boston, where a blizzard warning was issued for the first time since 2022, snowfall totals could reach up to two feet. The fresh snow will be falling on the snow from the last storm that’s piled up on roadsides, much of it old and dirty.

The storm was expected to bring some of the most severe weather to eastern Massachusetts, stirring up strong winds in places such as Cape Cod and Nantucket where isolated gusts could reach over 70 m.p.h.

“There are going to be numerous power outages,” Mr. Hurley said. “That’s going to be a problem because you want people to stay warm.”

Miles G. Cohen contributed reporting.

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