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The South Coast region could receive anywhere between 8 and 15 inches of snow Sunday and Monday in what Mayor Jon Mitchell calls “the biggest snowstorm that will hit New Bedford in over a decade.”
In a news conference Friday, Mitchell told residents to stay inside and comply with the city’s parking ban during next week’s snow event. Snowfall is expected to begin Sunday mid-morning and continue through Monday, exacerbated by single-digit temperatures.
“Look out for your neighbors, especially the elderly,” Mitchell said. “We don’t want, especially, men of a certain age going out and being a hero.”
The city’s parking ban will go into effect at 2 a.m. early Sunday morning and last at least 24 hours, Mitchell said. During that time, residents can park in city garages and lots free of charge, although they will be encouraged to relocate “as soon as possible” after the city lifts the ban, public information officer Jonathan Darling added.
“We had this relatively little snowstorm last weekend… and we had towed 179 cars and took in 1,200 other cars because people, despite our efforts, didn’t see fit to comply with the ban,” Mitchell said.
New Bedford parking ban information
The citywide parking ban will go into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday. During that time, residents can park:
- On the north side of residential streets, opposite the side with the fire hydrant
- In city garages on Elm Street and at The Zeiterion
- In city-owned parking lots
Some streets may be blocked off on both sides. All city garages and lots are free of charge while the parking ban is in effect.
The city will be deploying 120 pieces of snow-clearing equipment beginning early Sunday morning and will be salting roads over the weekend. Buttonwood Park Zoo, public libraries, and city offices will be closed Sunday and Monday, although city employees who can work remotely will continue to do so. New Bedford Public Schools, which were already scheduled to close for a professional development day Monday, will also be closed.
Trash pickup will be delayed one day, as it would be with a Monday holiday.
Although Mitchell did not anticipate any blackouts or need to open the city’s emergency center, the city will open a warming center at PAACA on 360 Coggeshall St. beginning at 4 p.m. Saturday for people who are experiencing homelessness or otherwise caught in the cold.
“If you see somebody that looks unattended out in the cold, call the non-emergency police line or even 911,” Mitchell said.
The whole of New England is under a winter storm watch as a low pressure area moves through the Southeast and up the Mid-Atlantic coast through Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The storm is accompanied by “bitterly cold temperatures” from a high-pressure system moving southward from central Canada. The near-nationwide weather event could cause significant travel delays, the National Weather Service warns, and people should plan accordingly.
This winter and early spring falls in a La Niña year, which tends to bring colder temperatures in the north and more frequent nor’easters and coastal storms. La Niña, a climate pattern that recurs every two to seven years, can also cause wide swings in precipitation levels. It can bring both drought and more intense snowstorms when they do hit, plus more frequent hurricanes during La Niña summers. These periods contrast with El Niño years, which bring milder winters and fewer storm conditions to the northern United States.
Although inconvenient for New Englanders, La Niña years are extremely beneficial for marine life in the Pacific Ocean, since stronger trade winds and an upwelling of colder water bring critical nutrients from the depths to the ocean’s surface. By summer, however, New England is expected to fall under El Niño once again, which may indicate a milder Atlantic hurricane season.
As of now, the Army Corps of Engineers will not be closing the port’s hurricane barrier, Mitchell said, since wind is not expected to be a major issue. Still, Mitchell compared Monday’s storm to the series of storms he weathered as mayor in 2015, Massachusetts’ “Snowmaggedon,” when snowfall after snowfall and bitter temperatures left a “challenging” pile-up.
Since then, Mitchell said the city has gotten better at salting roads methodically ahead of time, and has contracted with a private modeling system in addition to the National Weather Service to more accurately forecast weather events. Over time, however, he said it’s gotten more difficult to disseminate critical information to residents and ensure compliance on measures like parking bans, which allow the city to efficiently plow roads for emergency vehicles.
“We’ve got a very fractured news environment now,” Mitchell said.
For more information about Sunday and Monday’s snowstorm, visit www.newbedford-ma.gov.
Brooke Kushwaha can be reached at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.
Has anyone tried to correlate the number of actual cars in New Bedford (excise tax records?) with the amount of legal and FREE on street parking? It would also be useful to know how many households actually don’t have a vehicle. You’d have to add a number for those from out of state that seem to live here… Maybe this would help to provide a more realistic assessment for the amount of space needed.
I see many more and larger cars here now than in years past, especially around multifamily areas. Given that there is a fair amount of vandalism, most drivers would prefer to be able to at least see where their cars are parked. Parking bans and the # of tickets issued show the extent of the existing problem. Many current residents already have to park well away from their homes. Do politicians really want older folks to walk a few blocks on ice to dig out? In the last storm, where I walked, town sidewalks were more treacherous than residential. Where do they expect new residents (of new or newly subdivided homes) to fit their vehicles into the already crowded streets? Just sayin.
Your comment “most drivers prefer to see their vehicle”. Then purchase a home. Hell I have a neighbor with a 4-5 car driveway that didn’t bother cleaning their snow. We had cleared 2 spots on the street when a neighbor was struggling to park. Guess where that neighbor with the 4-5 spot went, in the spots we cleared yet they never clear anything and we stopped this year. Weather happens, especially in New England. Go park in your local school yard, when you go to the mall or any other place than your home, you are not parked right out of where you are.