"Blizzard" just starting here in Massachusetts.  The National Weather Service warned that the  approaching Christmas weekend blizzard will bring wind gusts of up to 60 miles an hour and could drop as much as 20 inches of heavy, wet snow in the greater Boston area, west to Worcester and south to Providence during the next 24 hours.  Blowing snow and gusting winds will combine to create “extremely dangerous travel conditions’’ tonight and into Monday morning, before it fades away Monday afternoon.

Scattered power outages are predicted from collapsed power lines, fallen trees and branches and the weight of the high moisture snow.  Many fear it may result in the same extended ice storm emergency of two years ago, when some areas experienced power outages of up to twoweeks or more. State and local officials urged people to get off the highways by mid-afternoon so road crews can attack the heavy, wet snow. At its height, the storm is expected to dump between two to four inches of snow per hour.