Forecasters urge Mass. residents to not journey this weekend amid huge snowstorm

With an enormous snowstorm barreling towards Massachusetts and New England, forecasters are urging anybody planning to journey over the weekend to keep away from doing so if in any respect potential.

The National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Warning blanketing the complete state, noting that “roads, and especially bridges and overpasses, will likely become slick and hazardous.”

“Travel could be very difficult to impossible, especially if traveling overnight into the Monday morning commute,” forecasters wrote.

Anyone who should journey is urged to maintain an additional flashlight, meals and water of their car in case of emergency.

“Persons should consider delaying all travel. Motorists should use extreme caution if travel is absolutely necessary,” forecasters wrote.

• Read extra: Flying this weekend? What to know as snowstorm cancels tons of of flights

Forecasters at AccuWeather added that “travel conditions will deteriorate rapidly” as soon as the storm descends on Sunday. Snow is anticipated to start out Sunday morning to early afternoon, starting within the southwest and travelling northeast. The snow is anticipated to turn into regular Sunday afternoon, climate service forecasters mentioned

Snowfall charges of 1 to 2 inches per hour on the peak of the storm might make it troublesome for crews to maintain roads open, forecasters wrote. The heaviest snow is anticipated to fall Sunday night by means of early Monday morning.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation mentioned Friday afternoon that it is going to be pretreating roads and can deploy snow elimination workers as obligatory as soon as snow begins falling — with greater than 3,000 items of apparatus obtainable throughout the state.

“MassDOT crews are fully prepared and will be working around the clock, starting with efforts to pretreat roadways before the storm arrives, and continuing throughout this weekend as the system moves across Massachusetts,” State Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver mentioned in an announcement. “We are asking travelers to consider public transportation options and to use caution if they must be on the roads”

In all, the climate service expects greater than a foot of snow to fall throughout Massachusetts between 7 a.m. Sunday and seven p.m. Monday.

The Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Boston Logan International Airport, mentioned the airport will stay “fully operational throughout the weekend,” although many airways have already cancelled flights.

To that finish, 30 flights at Boston Logan scheduled for Sunday have already been cancelled. Anyone with a confirmed flight in the course of the storm ought to enable additional time to get to and from the airport, Massport mentioned.