via:philly.com
Snow could start falling in Philadelphia by 3 p.m. today, creating wet roads and windshields during the evening rush, then posing threats of some accumulation and ice on roads by the time dinnergoers start heading home, forecasters said this morning.
“There shouldn’t be a lot of accumulation this evening but it should be snowing,” said meteorologist Mark DeLisi of the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
As of 11 a.m., radar was showing that a line of snow had started passing through Baltimore and Washington, D.C. – cities that might get 20 to 28 inches, according to a revised weather service estimate.
This evening in the Philadelphia region, winds and the snowfall will pick up, as the system delivers most of its wallop overnight, with snow at times falling an inch or two an hour.
By tomorrow afternoon, 10 to 18 inches is expected to blanket Philadelphia, western South Jersey and Northern Delaware, according to the National Weather Service.
Less is expected for areas north and west of the city.
AccuWeather was calling for more like 6 to 12 in the city and its surrounding counties in Pennsylvania.
Coastal counties in New Jersey face not only as much as 22 inches of snow but possible blizzard conditions with gusts of up to 50 m.p.h. possible between 4 p.m. today to 7 p.m. tomorrow, according to the National Weather Service.
Tomorrow morning, people in the Philadelphia area should wake to about six inches on the ground, with new snow and old snow being blown around, diminishing visibility for drivers, Kines said.
The snow should be a light powder, easy for snow blowers, bad for snowmen.
Accumulation should continue till early afternoon throughout the region, but winds could continue to stir things up into tomorrow evening, Kines said.
“I think by noon tomorrow, 90 percent of the accumulating snow is done,” he said.
The snow will stick around for days, as temperatures remain below freezing into Tuesday, when another significant storm is expected.
It looks like another nor’easter, potentially bringing more moisture from the Gulf of Mexico to meet up with Atlantic moisture, Kines said.
“It could be another six-incher,” he said.
Whether the path would include Philadelphia is too early to predict.
