Major storm hits US

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani ordered a shutdown Sunday of the city’s entire traffic network to all but emergency travel ahead of a massive snowstorm expected to hit the northeast United States.

Starting at 9:00pm Sunday to noon yesterday a “state of emergency closes the streets, highways and bridges of New York City for all traffic, cars, trucks, scooters and E-bikes,” Mamdani told reporters.

The ban will not affect essential workers or New Yorkers needing to travel due to emergencies, according to Mamdani. New York is home to over eight million people.

“We are asking New Yorkers to avoid all non essential travel,” the mayor said. “New York City has not faced a storm of this scale in the last decade.”

The fast-developing storm is threatening to pummel the US East Coast with a foot or more of snow beginning Sunday, just weeks after the region recovered from another devastating weather system.

Meteorologists issued blizzard warnings for New York and parts of at least six states, warning Saturday that heavy snow and gale-force winds are forecast to slam all major cities along the densely populated Interstate 95 northeast corridor, including Boston, Philadelphia, and even Washington further south.

The NWS headquarters said snowfall rates of more than one inch (2.5 centimeters) an hour will occur at times along parts of the East Coast, with huge snow totals making travel nearly impossible. Power outages are likely.

The mega-storm that swept across the eastern half of the country in late January was linked to more than 100 deaths nationwide, and slammed some cities with heavy snow and sleet that froze into rock-hard ice.

Meanwhile, more than 5,000 flights have been cancelled, data from the tracker FlightAware showed early yesterday.