BOSTON – Six feet of snow in the last month and counting.
Bostonians have had it up to their eyeballs with the winter of 2015.
“I can’t believe this is my neighborhood. It’s wild,” Amy McHugh of Weymouth, Massachusetts, told CNN affiliate WCVB-TV. “I keep telling the kids, ‘You’re going to be telling your kids about this.’ It’s unimaginable.”
Not only unimaginable, but record-setting.
“It’s only been 14 days, and we’ve gotten 70 to 80 inches of snow around the commonwealth,” Gov. Charlie Baker said. “This is pretty much unprecedented.
“If I’ve learned one thing over the course of the past two weeks, it’s (that) Mother Nature makes the rules,” Baker said.
By Monday evening, the system had dumped an additional 22-plus inches on Boston, pushing it into the city’s Top 5 for February snowstorms.
The 30-day total is even more impressive. At a fraction under 72 inches, it set a record. In an average year, the city gets 47 inches of snow.
A man identified as Cesar Moya, 60, died after a plowing truck struck him Monday afternoon in Medford, Massachusetts, the office of Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said. Moya was struck in a parking lot while leaving work after completing a shift at a market. He died from his injuries at a hospital.
“The circumstances surrounding what occurred are still being examined,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “However, due to the unprecedented weather we are all experiencing, it bears saying that we all need to be mindful of public safety issues as we navigate sidewalks, parking lots, and roads.”
Even more snow could fall before the weekend. The National Weather Service is keeping close watch on a new storm that could bring between 3 and 6 additional inches of snow to the Boston area Thursday and Friday.
It’s enough to drive some folks a bit stir crazy.
One Boston resident used the hashtag #getmeoutofhere to describe his feelings.
Tuesday’s priority, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, is to assist cities with digging out.
The state agency will help cities move snow to snow farms or, in some cases, into rivers, spokesman Peter Judge told CNN.
“Everyone’s been working full-bore for that last three weeks,” Judge said, referring to the trucks removing as much snow as possible.
Eastern Massachusetts is running out of places to put all the white stuff.
There’s so much snow that cities have been given permission to dump it in Boston Harbor, which is usually a no-no.
School’s out (again)
Schools in parts of the Northeast, including Boston, are closed again Tuesday.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said students haven’t had a full week of classes in three weeks.
They’ll run out of snow days soon if the weather doesn’t let up.
Schools in the Pentucket Regional School District, north of Boston, will remain closed the rest of the week. The superintendent cited the “frequency and intensity of recent storms, another potentially major storm brewing for Thursday and Friday, and the already high levels of snow on the roofs of schools” as factors.
Travel is a mess
Boston remains under a snow emergency and parking ban. Cars left on city streets were being ticketed and towed to make room for snowplows.
The string of storms is taking a toll on city coffers. “We’ve gone through our $18 million budget for snow removal,” Walsh said.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, known as the T, has suspended all rail services through the end of Tuesday. Limited bus service will be running.
However, air travel across the Northeast should improve Tuesday.
More than 2,880 flights into and out of the United States were canceled Sunday and Monday, mostly because of the storm. By Tuesday afternoon, nearly 250 flights had been scrubbed, according to FlightAware.com.
Boston’s Logan International Airport remained open during the storm, but most flights were canceled Monday.
Courts are closed
The weather forced a couple of big Massachusetts trials to be delayed.
The murder trial of former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez has been pushed back to Wednesday, and the same goes for jury selection in the trial of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Coping with the snow
Folks in the Northeast are known for being tough, but three snowstorms in three weeks is wearing a bit thin.
“It’s kind of depressing sometimes,” Jesus Cora of Nashua, New Hampshire, told CNN affiliate WMUR-TV.
“It’s really depressing, you know?” Boston University freshman Cameron Barkan said, expressing the same sentiment.
“I’m tired of it,” said Barkan, who has missed three days of class because of the storms. “I usually like snow, but this is just a little much.”
