Winter storm warning issued for East End as ‘major’ storm is expected to bring heavy snow, high winds to region

A major winter storm will dump seven to 10 inches of snow on northeastern Suffolk County tonight into tomorrow morning, the National Weather Service said in a winter storm warning issued early this morning.

A low pressure system will move off the Mid-Atlantic coast this evening and quickly intensify into a major winter storm, bringing heavy snow and winds gusting as high as 50 to 55 mph to the region, the weather service said.

The winter storm warning is in effect from 2 p.m. today until 1 p.m. tomorrow.

The storm could make travel very difficult tonight and tomorrow morning, the weather service said.

The path of the low as it passes south of Long Island will determine how much warm air aloft will move into the region, NWS forecasters said. The warm air may cause the snow to change over to a mix of snow, sleet and rain on the East End, especially on the South Fork, forecasters said. If that’s how the low sets up, it will cut snow totals for these areas, which may see totals of
only four or five inches.

“As the low makes its eastward trek, winds will shift more to the north and allow colder air to work into the region, changing any mixed precipitation or rain back to all snow along the coast,” National Weather Service forecasters said. “Some additional accumulation is possible during this time frame which would be early Thursday morning.”

Storm total snow amounts will be 10 to 14 inches for New York City and western Long Island, and between 4 and 12 inches across eastern Long Island and southeastern Connecticut. This large range is due to continued uncertainty, the weather service said.

Riverhead Highway Superintendent George Woodson said his crews have prepared the department’s trucks and equipment ahead of the storm.

Highway personnel were scrambling to try to complete leaf pickup in the eastern portions of Riverhead Town yesterday. Leaves in the roadway would impede snow plowing and sanding, he said, so the pickup had to be a priority. As a result, he said, crews were not able to put up snow fencing in advance of this storm in most areas of town. Snow fencing along open farm fields helps control drifting where snowfall is accompanied by high winds.

Woodson urged residents to stay off the roads during the storm. Even four-wheel drive vehicles get stuck in drifting snow conditions and stuck vehicles impede the work of plow trucks.

Residents should move vehicles, basketball hoops, garbage cans and any other obstructions off the roadway, so trucks can safely plow.

PSEG Long Island is “closely tracking” the progress of the storm and is “hard at work making all necessary preparations to respond to the potential impact of the high winds and snow accumulations,” said John O’Connell, PSEG Long Island vice president of transmission and distribution.

The utility may launch what it calls an “enhancement to (its) outage communications process. Customers with power outages who contact the utility’s call center early in the storm will receive an “assessing conditions” message, rather than an estimated time of restoration. This will allow crews to assess storm impact before issuing estimates of restoration times, which will increase the the accuracy of the information being provided, PSEG Long Island said.