UPDATE 2:05 p.m.: Vice President Linda Lorimer announced the cancelation of Tuesday classes and extracurricular activities in an email to the Yale community shortly before 2 p.m. Monday. Non-essential staff are additionally not required to report for work, so libraries, offices and laboratories will remain closed.

Lorimer said the university will issue an update by 11 a.m. Tuesday about possibly allowing limited activities to meet on campus, depending on the severity of the storm and hazards on campus.

The email also stated that Payne-Whitney Gymnasium will be open to provide showers for those who lose power after the storm, and Commons will offer meals at reduced prices upon reopening.

Students in Timothy Dwight first heard the news in the TD dining hall when TD Master Jeffrey Brenzel ’75 announced during lunch that classes would be canceled on Tuesday.

According to four students present for the news, after students sang in celebration of a birthday, Brenzel took advantage of the lull in dining hall conversation to announce that he had been on a conference call earlier in which campus officials declared that classes will be cancelled for the second day in a row.

The two-day closure is the first time the University has officially canceled classes since a massive blizzard in 1978.

JULIA ZORTHIAN