This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.
⛅Partly sunny with highs in the 30s today. Getting very cold tonight, with a low of 5 degrees. Sunset is at 4:46 p.m.
GBH’s meteorologist Dave Epstein is watching the radar. “It’s too soon to say exactly where it’ll land or how much will accumulate,” he wrote of the impending winter storm. “But parts of the state could see up to a foot and a half of snow.”
But before the snowfall starts, it’s going to get very cold tonight and tomorrow, Epstein continued: expect temperatures between 0 and 10° and a wind chill that makes it feel more like -10° to -25° at higher elevations. “This will be get-your-attention kind of cold, and you’ll need to bundle up and cover your skin if you’re going to be out for any extended amount of time. But you’re not going to get frostbite from quick trips heading from the car into the supermarket,” Epstein wrote.
The snow should start Sunday afternoon and be mostly done by Monday morning, Epstein said. “North and west of Boston, it’s likely the snow will never become anything besides light. But south of the city, the snow may get quite sticky for a little while depending on the ultimate track of the storm,” he wrote. “It is unlikely that this becomes a storm with coastal flooding and power outages; it’s just not that type of system.” Check out Epstein’s full weekend forecast here.
Four Things to Know
1. Lower utility bills are in your future, at least temporarily: Massachusetts’ state government will use $180 million to reduce electric bills by 25% and natural gas bills by 10% for residential utility customers in February and March, Gov. Maura Healey announced yesterday. This will apply to every residential customer of National Grid, Eversource, Unitil, Liberty Gas and Berkshire Gas. The money for electric bill relief is coming from alternative compliance payments, a fee utility companies pay to the state’s Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
But your gas company will be able to collect the money from the 10% price drop in February and March during off-peak months, from May to October, Healey’s office told the State House News Service. This applies to all residential gas customers except those of Liberty Utilities, which covers the Fall River, North Attleboro and Blackstone areas.
2. As lawmakers in Massachusetts weigh whether to ban cell phone use in schools, the state’s top education official said he supports the idea. Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler told GBH’s Boston Public Radio that he’s noticed a difference in schools where phones are already banned.
“There’s been a transformation at that school in terms of what it feels like to be there during the day,” Tutwiler said. “Students are interacting with each other; if you’re there during mealtime they’re talking to each other rather than looking down at a device, and certainly teachers are not having to engage in those power struggles.”
3. About 59% of parents surveyed in Massachusetts said their school-aged children have used AI for school, according to a new poll from the MassINC Polling Group. About 48% of parents surveyed said they think AI will have a positive impact on learning, while 42% said they see negative consequences.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty. There’s parents on both sides of the issue. And not even both sides, but a lot of parents that just aren’t sure what to make of it yet,” said Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group.
4. The MBTA is trying a shuttle bus alternative in the next few months: the T recently got some safety upgrades that allow them to work on an inbound track while running trains on the outbound side in both directions, and vice versa.
It will still lead to slower-than-usual service, since train engineers will have to wait for one another to clear the tracks. But MBTA officials hope it will be faster than shuttle buses, GBH’s Jeremy Siegel reports. “It allows us to keep maintaining service and improving the customer experience by keeping passengers on those trains,” T Chief Safety Officer Tim Lesniak said.
New England day trips (for less freezing, snowy weekends)
You’ve gone to the store for eggs, milk and bread. You’ve prepared your shovel and salted your stoop. And now you’re dreaming of some outdoorsy activities that end with a nice place to warm up. What should you do?
If you’re looking for a day trip, Marc Hurwitz, founder of the Boston Restaurant Talk blog, gave GBH’s Morning Edition a few recommendations.
An outdoorsy day followed by a cozy inn dinner: “Not too far outside of Boston, there are a lot of trails in Sudbury, Lincoln and Concord for cross-country skiing, hiking or snowshoeing, and there actually are some trails within walking distance of the Wayside Inn, [72 Wayside Inn Road, Sudbury] which is just a perfect place in the winter with the fireplace and the old-school food like steaks and seafood. It dates back to the 1700s, so just a lot of character.”
Skis and brewskies: “For those who like to do downhill skiing, this is a place I used to go all the time growing up. At Wachusett Mountain [499 Mountain Rd, Princeton], just off Route 2, you can do a nice day of skiing or an evening of skiing and then you can go a few miles over to Wachusett Brewery [175 State Road East, Westminster], which has no connection to the mountain, and you can actually sit outside this time of year because they have heat lamps and fire pits. It’s a great place to go to sit outside and have a beer and some really good food.”
(Former) farm to (current) table: “Chase Farm in Lincoln, Rhode Island is a beautiful place to go for a walk. It’s hilly, with these old buildings from the 1700s. Then, you can drive a few miles to a place called The Abbey [686 Admiral St., Providence], which is a burger place, and you can just sit up at the bar and get burgers and beer after you’ve done your walk.”
You can hear Hurwitz’s full recommendations here.
Dig deeper:
-Gold Medal Dreams? Learn Olympic Sports in Greater Boston
-12 Winter Book Recommendations from GBH Staff
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