Of anywhere from three to four feet of snow being dumped in some of the borrows in new york city, some of the snow working from east to west down the coast, along through rhode island. Were going to go to rehema ellis who is on the road in massachusetts. What are conditions like there, rehema . The conditions are getting worse by the minute one of the things i wanted to mention as we were driving around as we have been driving around tonight is that people have been heeding the warning, theyre getting off the roads, theyre taking their time, theyre going slowly. We have not seen one wreck on the road and i hope i dont spoil that and we start to see a lot of accidents. But we have not seen one. No one pulled over on the side no one spinning out, not yet. And the good news is that people are getting off of the roads. We have got a lot of crews that have been out here that have been trying to prepare these roads with salt and sand to make it easier for people to get around, but heres the thing, in an hour a travel ban goes into effects here in massachusetts and only essential vehicles are to be out on the roads so as to make it easier for these snowplows when they come through to clear the streets. The snow is coming down its blowing sideways, more than coming down in a vertical direction amend that makes it harder out here on the roads. And its good that more and more people have decided to heed the warnings and get inside. As youll notice across the area, of course there are travel bans in effect. Here a travel went into effect at 11 00 p. M. No one out on the streets, but we do have for the latest forecast, our very own legend, al al roker of nbc. Are we looks like we may not have al. We are working to get al roker with the latest forecast. Earlier i was talking with bill karins there was talk of two or three feet. The earliest ban that left the city have sorted there were competing models as to how much snow was going to be dumped. The earlier returns suggested that perhaps new york wasnt going to get it as bad, it was going the focused more in massachusetts and boston. Cape cod getting lashed by 780mileperhour winds as we speak. So unclear were going the get what we have been promised were certainly going to get a foot at least, new york city essentially shut down, the same for to the city of boston. Schools closed Public Transportation shut down. All the governors in a band from new jersey all the way up to New Hampshire essentially closing their states down as much as possible. Worrying about being able to provide necessary Emergency Services and deal with Power Outages should those happen. Right now i want to go out to long island. Reporter im taking it all over. Its getting bad out here the winds have picked up you can see the snow is kind of going sideways now, and its been falling for the last several hours, as we have been out here late this afternoon. And roughly, i dont know about six inches on the ground its light snow and its accumulating. Look over on these bushes its been blowing and drifting. Its coming down pretty good. And the wind has picked up and of course this is long island so were expecting winds to come whipping in on the island and thats going to cause some surf problems some beach erosion some storm surge, perhaps, along the water fronts. And meanwhile we have this, as you see, nothing. There is no traffic, there up there, the lights in the distance is the long island expressway, where normally this time of night on a typical evening, there would be countless cars zooming along, now all were seeing are snowplows or utility vehicles every now and again moving by and moving quickly which means the streets are clear, theres no traffic. The gas station here has been empty, we have seen them come out once in a while to check on things but theres no customers. Its 11 00 on the east coast. There is now a travel bang in new york its a fine, its a ph. D. 380 if youre caught out on the roads. Oddly we saw a guy walking by a while ago, who was coming to visit some friends at this hotel after going to another hotel, he said. A hoetel that i cant see because its too far. Its not completely whiteout conditions, but if you were in a vehicle, you could probably see two or three feet ahead of you maybe. I would think under normal conditions, it would be hard to see very far. Earlier this evening, we had traffic jams grit lock as people were racing slowly to get home at 4 00 or 5 00 when offices were closing early. Well see what we have in the morning, were expecting two to three feet more. And the wind is whipping it around, making it hard to be out here. Now were back with al roker. Al are my kids going to get enough snow to sled tomorrow and how many days are schools going to be shut down . Are the questions the kids want to know. Are they in manhattan . Theyre in brooklyn im in manhattan. If you watch the radar, the brighter bands of snow of white, thats the heavier snow. And what were seeing we have been on the air since 8 00 and there was nothing over manhattan manhattan, nothing over brooklyn or queens now were looking at one to two snowfall amounts per hour backing up from east to west. So theres a heavier band getting ready to come in, i think, yes, your kids will have snow to sled in and no they will not videohave school tomorrow. And i would be willing to wager that they will not have school on wednesday. How do you recalibrate, as the storm comes u through, im skourlt of curious to see the National Weather service which earlier had been saying two to three feet. The map i was looking at was similar to the map that they had three or four hours ago, but it seems likes the forecast that we have been doing in house, changes dramatically. How do you tell when a storm comes in whether its essentially on track with what you anticipated or not . Its a living breathing thing almost in a way, this was interesting because the National Weather service initially a few hours ago, about 7 or 8 hours ago, dropped the amounts and then they brought them back up again. I think theyre looking at this bangeding, and, chris, ive been talking with my meteorologist producer, and what were watching youve got this pink line green, which is the rain and the white is the snowy. And the green is pushing south, which means this storm is probably intensifying now and were seeing more colder air drawn into it. And were seeing a lot and you notice all this white . Very bright. So theres still plenty to go through, were not done yet in the new york tristate area. So, you know hold on lets bite and see before we proclaim a forecast a bust or not. Al roker, who will be of course joining live through the night and then joining today tomorrow morning. Thank you very much al we really appreciate it. Joining me now from Providence Rhode island, chris warren of the weather channel, and providence is on track to get hit pretty hard . Reporter for the past few hours, the snow has coming throughlike this. Talking about the winds, things are going to be sfrel variable its not a uniform snowfall. And you can see this right here. This is completely dry concrete. And im going to crawl over here, kind of knee my way over here. Youre starting to see some snow and this is that wind drift, that the wind blowing the snow, maybe an inch right here. Got a little bit closer now were down if you can see this youre more like five inches right here and thats the way its going to be its not a uniform event. And also look at how light and fluffy this is. This is that whiteout conditions that you can get. Once the snow is on to the ground, its bad enough thats falling down heavy, but even when its on the ground you get whats called the ground blizzard, the wind picks up the snow from the ground and blows it around. So were still at the front end of this at Providence Rhode island you have to be off the roads at midnight. You can be given a ticket or you can be arrested if youre on the street. People are going to be at home not likely to get out for days its possible that they wont have power. That is a serious concern because the parking lot right next to us is filling up right now with utility trucks. Chris warren in Providence Rhode island. Governors across the country have taken pretty heavy steps to make sure cars are off the road theyre clear for emergency vehicles, some Lessons Learned from previous storms particularly sandy. Also coastal areas are preparing themselves for massive storm surge. Even in the winter. Paul douglas talked about the possibility of five feet in new york harbor. That ocean water being warmed up through a long process that includes global warming, its now about 13 degrees warmer than it should normally be in joorn, and part of that extra warmth is providing that kinetic energy. Its creating more winter storms in the last we got craig melvin driving arrange new york city in the snow right now, hopefully very safely and slowly. Craig, what are you seeing . Very safely very slowly up Upper West Side were in the Upper West Side community here in new york city. And i can tell you one of the things that we were looking for, especially, the travel began, as you mentioned there, as we have been talking about, 11 00, that is when all nonessential nonemergency personnel were supposed to be off the roads, off the highways within the past five minutes, i have seen not one, just two cars out here in the Upper West Side. And as im talking to you, theres a third car here coming up. Just to kind of give you a sense of what were looking at here in this particular part of new york city. I can also tell you that the snow has started to come down once again, we had seen that snow taper off a bit. The snow has picked up a fair amount, i would say, within the past 20 or 30 minutes, take a look here this is columbus avenue and 74th and its a ghost town, you see a hand full of folks walking the sidewalks, theres a man who appears to be out taking some pictures as well. Live television sir, please dont use any profanity. Absolutely. Reporter you live here on the west side . Its a nice peaceful evening, since basically the travel ban is going to barren the city streets, might as well see what its like outside. Reporter it seems like by and large people have been respecting the travel ban, wouldnt you say . And theres bsh a cop thats been patrolling for the last few minutes or so and i dont know if ill see the tax city get pulled over. What about snowplows . Thats one thing, i actually havent seen so many snowplows, i know theyre probably waiting for the last trickling vehicles to the get off the roads and thats my guess, and then theyll come in with the bigger plows. But from everything ive been hearing about the changing forecast, the jurys still out as to what its going to be like out here. Our man al roker said dont go changing your plans yet. Again, chris, by and large, we see an emergency vehicle, we have seen a couple of those making their way up and down the streets. Thanks very much for that report this is of course a big test for mayor de blasio and the mayor of new york and washington. Every executive will tell you that the worst thing you can do politically is mishandle an emergency. We saw that of course with tremendous tragic consequences during katrina. We saw it to some extent in the wake of sandy, we saw mayor after mayor fail. The mayor here very much on high alert. Theres a map of what streets are being plowed. Governors up and down the eastern seaboard also working overtime to make sure they are able to provide what their constituents need to stay safe at this hour. Lots more to come, im chris hastes hayes. We are back in the middle of the blizzard thats pounding the northeast at the moment. Bands of snow are making their way across a ghost of new york city which has been for all intents and purposes shut down. Boston essentially shut down about 60 Million People under Winter Weather advisory, seven states having declared a state of emergencies. I want to bring in paul douglas, one of my favorite meteorologists. Paul, this is the question i have for you, if the forecast turns out to not be correct, are we going to be jail time . Public floggings. In all seriousness, right, these things strike me as pretty difficult to predict because they are by their nature right, statistically improbable events they dont happen very often, but what are the kind of factors going into figuring out what is happening, how soon can you figure out when a stormlike this is forming and what its going to do. It has been said that economics is the dismal science, as you know the problem is that every day is different, every storm is different. U you never have an identical scenario where you can go back use and analog method and say on this day in 1976the art, the dirty art if you will is trying to figure out which model to you believe, which model works best in this situation . Some of that is science, some of it is intuition, some of it is gut feel. But i can tell you this certainly Television Meteorologists have a reputation to overpredepicting snow. No secret about that. If you took all of the predicted snow over the years, over the decades, there would be an ice ages right now. There would be about a twomile slab of ice above new york, and its simple if you predict a foot of snow and you wind up with four or five inches most are forgiving. If you predict flurries and you get two feet of flurries for example, youre done. We have seen instances where policymakers trapped in a bad environment and essentially try to blame forecasters. Here were seeing precautions, an unprecedented step. New york city has never been shut down for snow in history, we are seeing them err on the side of caution, we see that same kind of asymmetry in the response of policymakers but they have to depend on more or less the same forecast right . Theres no inside dope that if youre the governor of rhode island that u youre getting that essentially were not getting right now and people with access to the internet or television are getting . I keep waiting for someone to hand me the answer key. Again, there are cores of models and a lot of this just depends on personal history. And experience. And after a while, you get a feel for the models but in this case, this storm, chris, just about all of the models were in alignment alignment. You look for all the models to agree. There might be some discrepancies, but they came into very tight alinement. And if new york city gets only various shades of gray but again in this situation, with lives on the line an historic storm, a deadly storm, you have to err on the side of safety, and i think officials have done the right thing with this . Are we better at predicting things kinds of things of modeling them than we were 10 years ago, 20 years ago . Absolutely, its human nature, you remember the busted forecast, you dont remember the 85 , or 95 of the time the local moolgtseteorologists got pretty close. The perception is you should be able to predict right down to the inch from my backyard paul. My favorite profess store said we dont have the technology and we never will to predict down to the inch. There are nuisance storms bad storms and crippling storms. This is certainly a plowable snowfall for new jersey. Its going to be crippling from new york to montauk and boston. Were somewhere between plowable and crippling. Ill tell you one thing, if you got 90 feet of snow in Rockefeller Center the good people at Rockefeller Center would have the place plowed, theyre indominable. One of the very few good things about this kind of devastating winter event is that we get to learn new terms. A polar vortex a derecho or a reporter this storm is expected to bomb out offshore thats a short word for the meteorological word bombogenesis. Its a catchy meteorological material. First off it seems to have an invisible touch. Low pressure system reaches in and grabs hold of another system. The storm we see right now, two storms meet, theres a pressure drop. Normally one system could leave but it wont go. Now the eastern seaboard cant feel a thing from their head down to their toes thats bombo bombogenesis. This is the state of emergency we live in and this is what we live in. We are given a state of the emergency. We are given state of emergency. All right, as the stormy wingd swirls around us the storm hitting the northeast. What is the latest forecast . Hey, chris, we are looking at pretty much those heavy bands now that are setting up from are we are looking at this band that was trying to make it into new york and thats whats been is so hard. So the confidence for the forecast is really trending from providence up to boston. And thats where were sure were going to get the heaviest of the snowfall. New york is a little bit questionable. So from new york down to philly it looks like lesser snow amounts, but still a very dangerous situation because the winds and the white house conditions will still be per sis tent through the overnight. Heres a look at the overnight and you can see where that white want of white is thats the heaviest band that is making it through long island. So we are seeing some very heavy snow making its way across lodge island. Its trying to make it into the city, but its hard because that low is sitting off the coast. Temps are in the 20s we do have that cold air locksed in place. The winds are picking up, the visibility is also becoming a concern, we have been seeing that for several hours now, visibility a concern. Heres the forecast, 10 to 14 inches likely again the worst of this storm will be overnight until about 10 00 in the morning, still on track for 22 to 26 in boston serge right along the mass pike thats when we could see some of the heaviest and even isolated higher amounts than that along cape cod as well. Hartford 14 to 18 philadelphia the less amount. It just doesnt look like the snow will make it that far inland. So were calling for three to skix right now in philadelphia. Heres a look at the winds, its 124 in new york. The winds will be picking up through the overnight and through tomorrow as well. So this is where were concerned for the whiteout conditions with blowing and drifting snow and certainly that is going to be the case upthrough southern evening. Visibility also a problem and you can see that pretty clearly here from new york on north where victim is a mile or les and that will continue as well. And thats why we still have these blizzard warnings that will be in effect through all of the overnight and through much of tomorrow. Because visibility is going to be at times down to zero with that blowing and drifting snow. And heavy snow bands moving through. So this storm is definitely still on track, it ramps up overnight. It will all start to