Forecast snowstorm expected to clobber New England : NPR

Mother Nature is not fooling around this time. An April nor’easter headed for New England could dump more than a foot of snow in many areas, and could leave many in the region without power for days.

The powerful storm, moving up the coast Wednesday, is expected to bring heavy rain and high wind gusts to Boston, where delays are expected at Logan airport. But the more significant impact is expected in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, where wide swaths of the region could end up with 18-24 inches, according to National Weather Service meteorologist John Palmer.

“This is going to be a big one,” he says.

Especially for April. “It’s definitely uncommon to see these types of storms,” says Palmer.

Southern New England and the coastline will get mostly rain, and maybe a few inches of snow.

“But mile by mile, as you work your way inland it quickly ramps up to 18-24 inches just a few miles back from the coast,” says NWS meteorologist Michael Clair.

The snow will be heavy and wet, the kind that brings down tree branches, and with them, power lines.

“People should be prepared to be without power for several days, because this is a pretty intense, pretty high-impact event,” Clair says. Wind gusts expected to hit 55 mph may well add to the damage, he warns.

In New Hampshire, utility officials say hundreds of extra crews are standing by to restore power, as needed. This nor’easter comes on the heals of an ice storm last week and also a wind storm over the weekend, making the potential damage all the more daunting.

“With the trees weakened from last week, they’re more susceptible to come down and cause damage to the electric system, resulting in outages, says William Hinkle, a spokesperson for Eversource, which serves New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts. “Also, the ground is highly saturated from recent weather as well, which also poses a threat to the trees and makes them more likely to come down.”

Hinkle adds the timing of the storm, in spring, is no longer surprising.

“With the uncertainty around our climate, it’s just becoming more frequent that we see these kind of unseasonal events,” he says. “There’s not a season of the year in which there aren’t potential threats from [extreme] weather.”

While utilities are bracing for the storm, the snowy forecast is welcome news to New England ski areas, who’ve seen below average snowfall this season.

“We are getting super excited!” exults the weather forecast page for Wildcat Mountain in Jackson, NH. “Wildcat appears to be in the snowfall jackpot zone.