Boston’s 18-Inch Snow Deluge to Make Travel Hard to ‘Impossible’

(Bloomberg) -- Boston is in line for as much as 18 inches (46 centimeters) of snow on Sunday and Monday from a storm coming on top of near-zero temperatures that have prompted city officials to declare a cold emergency.

The National Weather Service’s forecast calls for 12 to 18 inches of snow across much of southern New England, including the Boston area, with the first flakes falling in the late morning or early afternoon on Sunday. That stands to be the most snow Boston’s received from a single storm in four years. 

Travel could be “very difficult to impossible” overnight Sunday into the Monday morning commute, the weather service said. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation will be pre-treating roads, with more than 3,000 pieces of equipment available for plowing and other needs, according to agency spokesperson John Goggin.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey told all non-essential state employees to work from home on Monday and urged private-sector employers to do the same. 

“On Sunday, when we start to see the snow come, I ask people to stay off the roads,” she said at a press conference Friday afternoon. 

Ahead of the storm, the region is expected to see wind-chill values as low as minus 12 degrees F (minus 24 C) in the early part of the weekend. Boston’s cold emergency will last from Friday through Sunday, and Mayor Michelle Wu is opening up the city’s youth centers as warming stations for people seeking refuge. 

Eversource Energy and other utilities have extra utility poles, transformers and other equipment at the ready to address any power outages. Wind gusts could reach 30 miles (48 kilometers) per hour. 

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