Storm Likely To Bring Snow, Coastal Flooding

A winter storm moving up from the mid-Atlantic will bring snow and wind to eastern Massachusetts Wednesday night.

Meteorologist Mark Rosenthal says it will likely be a two-part storm.

"We think we'll have some light precipitation very late [Wednesday night] and [Thursday], but I think the steadier, heavier snow will hold off until [Thursday] afternoon and be with us through the night and early Friday morning."

Greater Boston could see 3 to 6 inches of snow, with higher snowfall totals in central Massachusetts.

The National Weather Service has posted coastal flood warnings in Massachusetts from the New Hampshire border all the way down to Cape Cod and the Islands. Residents in some coastal communities, like Scituate, are already being asked to evacuate.

Peter Judge, with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, says authorities are expecting major coastal flooding.

"All the communities that experienced some sort of coastal flooding with the recent blizzard probably would expect to have at least as much — if not more — potential flooding out of this event," Judge said.

Judge says heavy winds mean there's also a potential for widespread power outages.

Debbie Drew, with the utility National Grid, says emergency crews are already lined up and ready to go in the event of outages.

"We've already secured more than 230 contractor line crews to help us in restoring power in case it's interrupted during the storm, we got about 190 tree crews on hand," Drew said.