Downstate NY Travel Ban Imposed

Editor’s Note: The original version of this report said the ban included Hudson Valley. The governor imposed a ban on travel only for New York City and Long Island. Patch regrets the error.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a road travel ban for downstate New York, specifically New York and Long Island, as the blizzard of 2016 brings heavy snow and low visibility to the region.

It will begin at 2:30 p.m.

“When the snowfall hits a certain rate, the plows literally cannot keep up with the amount of snowfall and that’s where we are,” Cuomo said during a press conference on Long Island (see VIDEO below). “Once the snow fall is over, about three inches per hour, the plows can’t keep up and that’s when the situation becomes most dangerous and frankly, that’s the situation that is now occurring.

“The National Weather service got it right, the forecasters. They said we were going to get hit with a blizzard and we did. They have actually just increased their forecast with for the amount of snow that going to fall and the forecast is now up to 30 inches in some parts of downstate New York.”