Early March Storm Blasts Boston Area With Heavy Snow

The biggest storm of the winter has just moved out of the Boston area.

It packed quite a punch, with many locations seeing more than a foot of snow. At some points overnight, snow was falling at a rate of 2 to 3 inches an hour.

State Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver said people should stay off the roads until the afternoon.

Added Boston Mayor Marty Walsh: "We're anticipating that by about noontime we'll have all of our streets down to pavement. So we'll be plowing and removing snow all morning today and then later on this afternoon we'll be doing work on salting our streets."

Dozens of schools were closed Monday, and nonessential state workers were given until 11 a.m. to come in.

As of 11 a.m., nearly 5,000 customers were without power statewide.

WBUR meteorologist David Epstein said in his morning forecast that temperatures were set to get into the 40s later on Monday.