Forecasters on Monday were already warning two days in advance of yet another a potent winter storm expected to bring hurricane-force winds and heavy snow to southern New England and up to 5 more inches of snow to New York City.
A springtime blizzard watch was issued beginning late Tuesday for the Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard spring resort areas of Massachusetts, where as much as a foot of snow could fall by Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service said.
The storm is coming with powerful winds likely to cause near-zero visibility during the Wednesday morning rush hour — created by the clash of an extraordinarily low-pressure cold system roaring down from Canada and a warm, moist system heading up from the South.
The weather service issued hurricane-force wind warnings beginning late Tuesday along the Atlantic coast from the Canadian border down to Cape Cod, predicting gusts as heavy as 90 mph overnight Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
"As this storm intensifies, it's going to wrap up like a coiled spring, and it's going to have a lot of energy with it," said Tom Niziol, a forecaster for The Weather Channel.
If it stays on the course forecasters expect, the storm's outer bands would push sustained winds as high as 35 mph as far as Boston and could drop up to 5 inches of new snow Wednesday on New York City, especially eastern Long Island, and 8 inches in Providence, R.I.
But if it shifts even a little slightly, all bets are off, Niziol said.
"We'll have to watch this system very carefully," he said. "Slight changes in the track could mean significant differences in snowfall across coastal New England."
—M. Alex Johnson
