Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York declared a state of emergency on Friday ahead of what meteorologists are projecting to be one of the worst storms to hit the state in a decade.
“This is a very dangerous combination of heavy snow and extreme, extreme cold temperatures,” Ms. Hochul said, adding that with 12 to 18 inches of snow in the forecast, no corner of the state would be “immune from Mother Nature’s wrath.”
She urged people to work from home if they could, and authorized state employees apart from those involved in storm preparedness to do so. She also advised against going outside, noting that the wind chill could reach -50 degrees in parts of the North Country.
In New York City, early voting for Feb. 3 special elections will be suspended on Sunday, with makeup hours to be announced at a later date. Crews will be working to bring unhoused people inside.
The governor said the state was well prepared for the coming storm, with mountains of salt — 114,000 tons of it — on hand. Utility workers and plows were on standby.
Ms. Hochul has expertise in matters of extreme weather: Born and raised in the Buffalo area, she has had all manner of personal experiences to call upon in advising residents on how to prepare for snow.
She drew on those experiences during a news conference Friday, as she advised New Yorkers to stock up on groceries, pet food, prescriptions, diapers and other essentials. “You do not want to be the parent who ran out of peanut butter on Sunday night and had to go out into the bitter cold to buy it,” she said. “I’ve been that parent.”
She noted that shoveling snow could increase the chances of a cardiac event. “It happened to one of my neighbors in Buffalo,” she said. “So be careful when you’re shoveling snow.”
And dogs should be kept on leashes, she said, even if they were usually good without one. “I’ve had to chase dogs in blizzards. That’s not fun.”
If the power were to go out, families should gather in one room, she said, ideally away from windows, so they could share body heat.
And she urged New Yorkers to be aware of signs of hypothermia — slurred speech, poor coordination, shivering.
“Let’s just get through this weekend safely,” she said, “and live to tell the stories about it afterward.”
In New York City, where a state of emergency has also been declared, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said during an early-morning media blitz that the city was fully prepared for the coming snow.
During live interviews on The Weather Channel and local television and radio stations, the mayor, facing his first major snowstorm, sought to project an air of confidence. He warned residents to shop for groceries in advance and to stay at home on Sunday during the height of the storm, even suggesting they take advantage of the circumstances to binge-watch reality television.
“This weekend is going to be cold, it is going to be windy and above all else, it is going to be a weekend where your city is prepared,” Mr. Mamdani said, during a news conference at the city’s emergency management headquarters in Brooklyn.
More than 2,000 sanitation workers will begin working 12-hour shifts on Saturday night. The city will deploy 700 salt spreaders as the snow begins and then unleash 2,200 plows once accumulation levels reach two inches. A hazardous travel advisory is in place for Sunday and Monday.
Crews began brining the streets with salt at 6 a.m. on Friday, Mr. Mamdani said.
“This is the calm before the storm. Either late tomorrow evening or early Sunday morning, we are going to see snow start to begin to fall across our city,” Mr. Mamdani said. “It will fall and fall, and then fall some more.”
Despite the forecast, there will be no official snow day on Monday for New York City’s school children, with schools either open or holding class virtually. Mr. Mamdani said parents would be notified by noon on Sunday about which option the city had chosen.
The mayor said he decided against a snow day because he wanted to ensure that the school system met the state requirement of 180 days per year of instruction, and that the recent addition of some holidays to the school calendar had it made more difficult to reach that threshold.
“I have to apologize to the students that were hoping for a different answer for a traditional snow day,” the mayor said at the news conference. “That will not be the case.”
But the decision did not come without lobbying.
One student found an email address for his wife, Rama Duwaji, and sent her a message making the case for a snow day, Mr. Mamdani said. “She thought it was a very good argument,” Mr. Mamdani said in a television interview.
Mr. Mamdani, like all New York City mayors before him, is facing the common challenge of being able to deliver services in times of emergency. Previous mayors have faced challenges while responding to snowstorms, including Michael R. Bloomberg, who was in Bermuda when a blizzard paralyzed the city in 2010, or Bill de Blasio, who responded slowly to a snowstorm in 2014.
Mr. Mamdani seems determined to learn from his predecessors’ mistakes. Instead of wearing his normal suit jacket and skinny tie during the news conference on Friday, he donned a New York City Emergency Management quarter-zip that said “Mayor” on it, the kind former Mayor Eric Adams was known for sporting during emergency news conferences.
On social media, Mr. Adams, who has been vocal in criticizing Mr. Mamdani during his first few weeks in office, reminded the public that responding to the storm was no longer his responsibility.
“Reminder,” Mr. Adams wrote on X. “I don’t run City Hall anymore. Yelling at me on Twitter will not speed up snow removal.”
Grace Ashford covers New York government and politics for The Times.
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