Mother Nature to put a foot down

A week after a massive ice storm broadsided the region, another serious storm threatens to dump more than a foot of snow today from the Berkshires to Boston.

In advance of the almost blizzard conditions forecast by meteorologists, Boston city officials canceled school today and told city employees not to come in unless they are told otherwise. Officials declared a snow emergency, banning parking on major arteries across the city.

Forecasters predict 1 to 2 inches of snow will fall every hour into the early evening, starting about 1 p.m. Strong Northeast winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour, gusting up to 45 miles per hour, will develop in the evening, reducing visibility to near zero at times into the night and creating a bitterly cold wind chill.

The timing and expected intensity of the storm are like that of last year's Dec. 13 storm that caught unsuspecting commuters on their way home, trapping many in slow-moving traffic for hours.

To avoid a repeat of the gridlock and resulting outrage, Governor Deval Patrick said he may order state workers to stay home today. Patrick planned to make the final decision at 5 a.m. and warned businesses that he may also ask them to tell employees not to come into the office.

"We will do everything we can, mindful that Mother Nature has a mind of her own, to assure the safety and ease of movement of the people of Massachusetts," Patrick said during a press conference yesterday.

MBTA operations officials said they planned to increase staff and equipment to cope with the storm. The authority, which on a typical day moves 1.3 million people, is prepared to run trains at a rush-hour pace earlier in the day, if necessary, to move homeward-bound commuters, officials said.

They will run "snow trains" through the night to prevent rails and overhead electrical wires from icing up and will activate special heaters to keep rails and switches ice-free.

They are also planning to plow the 43,000 parking spaces at their 141 commuter rail stations.

MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said Boston officials had asked him to do everything possible to keep trains going, so people could do Christmas shopping and get home. "We've had bad storms before, but it will be stressful," he said.

City officials said they planned to clear roads with 600 pieces of plowing and sanding equipment and 35,000 tons of salt and sand on hand, but they encouraged commuters to take public transportation.

They said the snow emergency will take effect at 9 this morning. Two hours before that, police and other city officials plan to drive around the city's major arteries, warning drivers to move their cars off the streets. Garages around the city will offer free or discounted parking today.

Those who don't move their cars will probably have them towed and get hit with a $45 ticket and a $105 towing fee.

"We encourage people to work from home [today] if they can," said Thomas J. Tinlin, commissioner of the Boston Transportation Department, which will have 169 enforcement officers on the job.

Dennis Royer, commissioner of the city's Department of Public Works and Transportation, said his staff will begin treating the streets at 11 a.m. to prevent icing beneath the accumulation of snow.

Royer defended the city's decision to begin moving cars off the street hours before snow begins to fall. "We don't want to have to tow people," he said. "But the bottom line is we'll be working around the clock."

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning yesterday for southern New England from 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. tomorrow, predicting that the snow would arrive in the Springfield area between 10 a.m. and noon and then spread over the rest of the area, hitting Eastern Massachusetts at about 1 p.m.

"By the time everything is said and done, we could see 6 to 12 inches," said Hayden Frank, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton. ". . . Any time you get 6 to 12 inches in the I-95 corridor, it's significant."

The weather service predicted that most of Southern New England would receive 6 to 12 inches by midnight with the highest amounts in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.

The storm is arriving as nearly 75,000 utility customers in New England remained without power yesterday from last week's ice storm, which knocked out electricity to nearly 1 million. In Massachusetts, the number without power was about 29,000, down from the peak of 326,000 last Friday.

In New Hampshire, the number of outages was 41,000, down from the peak of 420,000. Ten officials from FEMA visited the state yesterday to gauge damage to public land to determine whether the state may be eligible for federal aid.

More snow is forecast for Sunday. That storm is expected to begin in the morning and change to sleet by afternoon.

Martin Finucane of the Globe staff contributed to this report.