More snow falls on region

As temperatures in the city drop, meteorologists are now forecasting more snow for Boston, with 4 to 6 inches expected to fall by nightfall.

Warm air is expected to mix with low pressure and cause rain. But the pressure is moving further offshore, preventing the warm air from penetrating, meteorologists said.

Towns along the Cape, where the temperatures are slightly warmer, have experienced some rain, but storm warnings are still in effect for the northern and western parts of the state, which could see up to 10 inches of snow.

In Boston, temperatures are likely to fall to 15 degrees by 6 or 7 tonight. But winds of up to 50 miles an hour also will hit the city, making it feel like it's below zero, said Eleanor Vallier-Talbot, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

That means the snow that is falling now will freeze into a hard coating. Drivers hoping to get their cars out tomorrow should shovel as much snow out of the way now to avoid back-breaking work in the morning, Vallier-Talbot said.

"It’s going to flash freeze tonight and it’s going to be solid and hard as a rock," she said. "It’s going to be very, very hard to move it once [the temperature] starts dropping."

And with the dangerous, strong winds expected tonight, Bostonians who dug their cars out this weekend may have to do the unthinkable: remove the chairs, cones, and garbage cans protecting coveted parking spots.

It's that, Vallier-Talbot said, or risk "having people getting injured or have a chair fly through a window."

Out west, about 3,700 residences and homes were still without power in Fitchburg, Ashby, Townsend, and Lunenburg as a result of the severe ice storm that hit the area last week.

Governor Deval Patrick said yesterday that he would seek an investigation into why Unitil, the region's utility, had still not fully restored power.

"There is a lot of anger here," said Robert Plamondon, a selectman in Townsend, where Unitil was reporting that at least 148 homes and businesses were still without power. Officials at the emergency dispatch center said the volume of calls from people without power made them believe the number was higher.

"To what degree Unitil is culpable is difficult to gauge," Plamondon said. "On the one hand, you have to cut them some slack because this is really unprecedented, but that being said I still think their response could have been better."

George Gantz, senior vice president of Unitil, said there is now a crew of 210 workers in the towns working to assess the total damage and restore power.

Gantz said the company was hampered by the scope of the storm, the severe damage it caused to electrical lines, and limited manpower earlier in the week. In recent days, contractors and utility companies from as far as Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania have sent crews to help. National Grid has supplied more than a 100 crew workers.

"We won’t be resting until everybody is back on," Gantz said, adding he welcomes Patrick's investigation into what went wrong.

"Anytime you have a federal disaster and you have customers without power for an extended period of time, anytime that happens when it’s over you want to do a detailed, debriefing, an assessment, and figure out lessons learned," he said.