New England Prepares for as Much as a Foot of Snow

Officials across New England were preparing on Tuesday for a major nor’easter to hit the region, closing schools and warning residents across Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut to stay off roads.

While the National Weather Service said forecasts in some areas remained “far from certain,” it was predicting that some parts of the region could see as much as a foot of snow.

Boston, which might see as much as eight inches of snow, was not taking any chances. As dawn approached on Tuesday, the city was already under a snow emergency and a citywide parking ban. And all of its school-age children were waking up — or sleeping in — to the blissful quiet of a snow day as the city canceled classes.

“Wherever possible, make plans to be indoors, stay off the roads,” Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston told reporters. “It’s looking like it will come down pretty heavily, pretty fast.”

Boston’s rule means that all of its public buildings will be closed on Tuesday, and that any vehicles parked along a “snow emergency artery” could be towed to make way for snow plows. The city said it had 40,000 tons of salt on hand — weighing about as much as 1,000 fully loaded eighteen-wheelers.

But the storm’s greatest impacts will likely be felt in southern Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, according to the Weather Service office in Boston. And officials in those areas have also been planning ahead.

In Rhode Island on Tuesday, nonessential government offices will be closed, and tractor-trailers were banned from state roads and interstate highways, Gov. Daniel J. McKee said in an executive order. Similar restrictions were in place across Connecticut.

Snowplow trucks are exempt, of course. Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut said that the state’s Department of Transportation had more than 600 trucks and more than 900 drivers ready to clear roads. Rhode Island officials said that 450 snowplow crews would report for duty around 1 a.m.

Kevin G. Andrade contributed reporting.