NORTHAMPTON — December’s second bout of winter weather Friday will likely give residents and visitors to the city another chance to heed snow emergency warnings and obey parking restrictions — or face the possibility of a tow.
The results weren’t so rosy during the first snowstorm earlier this month, with 99 cars being towed for violating a snow emergency declared on Dec. 9, according to information from the Northampton Police Department. Those parked on Village Hill Road and Prospect Street struggled the most with the parking restrictions, with seven cars towed from each location.
With snow forecast to begin falling early Friday morning, those drivers as well as the rest of the city may get another crack at the winter parking restrictions this weekend.
“We’re expecting some snow to move into the region,” said Lenore Correia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton. “Then we’re expecting it to continue through Friday evening. The tricky part is that there might be some freezing rain in that time.”
The region’s best chance for freezing rain could come Friday evening and potentially continue into Saturday afternoon, according to Correia. But before temperatures rise enough for regular rain, snow accumulation could reach 2 to 4 inches.
With that kind of forecast, Highway Superintendent Richard Parasiliti Jr. said Thursday the city would likely declare a snow emergency on Friday for the night.
For almost all city streets and in city parking lots, the snow emergency begins at 12:01 a.m. but in downtown Northampton on Main Street cars can remain parked on the street until 2 a.m., giving visitors to the area enough time to shop and eat before they need to move their cars.
Residents are alerted in a number of ways when the city declares a snow emergency, including through social media, traditional media, reverse 911 calls, tweets, text messages and the physical presence of flashing blue lights downtown.
During the first snow emergency earlier this month, car owners also struggled at both the Roundhouse and the Armory Street parking lots, which had four cars towed from each location. The Armory Street lot allows free overnight parking during snow emergencies, but cars parked there must be moved by 8 a.m. to allow for plowing.
Other areas in the city with multiple tows included Randolph Place, Hawley and Williams streets, all with five tows each. On Grant and Highland avenues, four cars were towed.
In comparison, a total of 232 cars were “snow towed” last winter from December 2016 to November 2017, according to police. Similar to this month’s issue, the most cars towed last year — 10 in total — were removed from Armory Street. Other hot spots in the city last winter included Strong Avenue, which had eight cars towed, Trumbull Road with six cars and Center, Old South and Crescent streets with five cars each.
Parasiliti has been with the department for nearly three decades. In his time, he said he’s seen the city’s winter parking policy change from no overnight street parking from Nov. 15 to April 1 to only selective parking bans during times of inclement weather.
He said snow emergencies are declared for a number of reasons, one being “to effectively make sure all people don’t park on city streets so we can actually plow the snow curb to curb.” Another reason is to allow for the snow mounds created by plows to be removed from along Main Street.
While the first snow emergency of the year can be a rude awakening for those new to the snow emergency system — or those who have forgotten how it works — Parasiliti said generally residents are good about the parking ban.
“The Department of Public Works, we don’t like to tow people’s vehicles but we also want to do a good job so the city is clean and safe,” Parasiliti said.
Residents can stay up to date on snow emergencies by visiting the winter storm page on the city’s website, http://www.northamptonma.gov/306/Snow-Ice, by calling an automated snow emergency hot line at 586-6969, or by signing up for the city’s reverse 911 system called Code Red.
“When I started here 28 years ago, we had four signs,” Parasiliti said of the previous system to alert residents of a snow emergency. “Here we are 28 years later, the internet and information age, we have more visual aides and more ways to communicate with people. I think it is a lot better.”
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.The story was updated on Friday afternoon to clarify the times of when a snow emergency begins.