A storm system will be affecting the mid-Atlantic region Thursday into Friday. Based on current model guidance, precipitation will begin Thursday morning, then continue into Friday afternoon. Precipitation should start out as snow just about everywhere, but then change over to rain, or a rain-snow mixture, south and east of the I-95 corridor. The highest precipitation amounts are likely to occur south and east of the I-95 corridor as well. North and west of the I-95 corridor, all snow is currently expected, but precipitation values will be less.
Based on current model guidance, snow totals everywhere will likely be in the advisory category or less. As a reminder, advisory category snow amounts are 2 to 4 inches of snow in the Philadelphia metro area and areas south and east; 3 to 6 inches north and west of the Philadelphia metro area.
Even more important than possible snow will be the extreme cold and gusty winds behind this system late Thursday night through Saturday. High temperatures on Friday will struggle to get out of the teens south and out of the single digits north. Low temperatures Friday night / Saturday morning will sink to the zero to 10 degree range south and zero to minus 10 degree range north. Gusty northwest winds could create wind chill factors in the minus 20 to minus 30 degree range. This kind of extreme cold hasn’t been seen around here for years. Humans and animals exposed to these extreme temperatures for any length of time will be in grave danger. Frozen pipes in unprotected areas, and concrete and asphalt pavement cracking can also be expected.
While there is a lot of uncertainty with the snow forecast in this prognosis, the cold temperatures and gusty winds are more certain. www.weather.gov/phi
