Icy winter storm targeting the Northeast to be the first of multiple February storms

AccuWeather

Wintry weather from the Midwest into the Northeast could cause serious problems for commutes due to ice accumulation, but this is just the first of several storms.

Transcript

00:00Dave, we have our hands full here with three legitimate storms, or at least two, plus what

00:07might be a series of storms next week across the east.

00:10And I know that you are very dialed in to places like New York City and Philadelphia

00:14with some of our media partners there that you serve on a daily basis.

00:18So let's talk about New York City.

00:20How are we doing there?

00:22Current temperatures were on the chilly side.

00:23Can you talk about what we can expect in that area for this event?

00:26Sure.

00:27We've got the situation here, Jeff, where today we had fresh, dry, cold air in place,

00:33dew points very low in the low teens, even some single number dew points nearby.

00:38So that's what you need to get a wintry weather setup.

00:43And of course, we have that in place right now.

00:46We are bringing the precipitation in late tonight.

00:49We kind of expect the first snowflakes with this setup to get into New York City sometime

00:56after maybe three or four in the morning or so, which is really bad timing for the

01:01morning commute.

01:02And it is going to come in as snow.

01:04The air is plenty cold and dry initially.

01:07And I think we have a window of maybe about three or four hours where whatever falls out

01:12of the sky in New York City will be in the form of snow.

01:15And so that is going to really get into that morning commute time.

01:20We do have a prediction of one to three inches.

01:22The three might be pushing it, but certainly the inch, inch and a half, maybe two inches

01:26in the city, depending on how much it snows during that critical window where the whole

01:32column of the atmosphere is cold enough to snow.

01:34And then it is going to transition over to some ice, and that would be in the form of

01:39sleet maybe for an hour or two, perhaps a little bit of freezing rain, not a long duration

01:45freezing rain event, and then goes to plain rain and then tapers off to drizzle and ends

01:50by early tomorrow afternoon.

01:52So a real messy commute, and more so as you get north and west of the city, a longer duration

01:58of messy road conditions.

02:00And Dave, for a place like Philadelphia, you are a little farther southwest, maybe a little

02:04more removed from the coastline, but you lose some latitude there.

02:08So you are in an environment where, again, we might be just as mild.

02:11What do you expect for Philadelphia compared to New York City with the impacts?

02:16Bump things up maybe by two or three hours on the arrival time.

02:20So we are looking at maybe an arrival of 1 or 2 a.m., certainly by 3 it is doing something

02:24in Philly, but we are kind of thinking 1 or 2.

02:27Probably comes in as snow or a mix of snow and sleet.

02:30They will get a coating to an inch, doubt that they get anything more than that, and

02:35then it will transition over to some freezing rain for a couple of hours, hour or two, and

02:40then probably by about maybe 8 a.m. or so, it is going over to some plain, just a plain

02:45cold rain.

02:47So nasty there, more icy, and again, worse conditions north and west of the city.

02:52Okay, and well beyond that, I know that this is going to be a storm that for the northeast

02:57in general, there will be some ice, some freezing rain, but also in the interior, a lot of sleet.

03:01So how will that impact power outages for an ice storm versus a sleet event?

03:07Yeah, it looks like there certainly is going to be a sleet and freezing rain over a large

03:13area.

03:14If we had to really focus on an area that is more, we have a longer duration and maybe

03:19a more serious icing situation, is more in the Appalachians, kind of maybe south central,

03:25southwestern Pennsylvania, down into portions of Maryland and West Virginia.

03:30That's the area we really are concerned about having an extended long period where temperatures

03:35are at or below freezing and the precipitation is falling as liquid.

03:40And Dave, just briefly before we say goodbye, this pattern is loaded.

03:43This next weekend, the storm looks kind of similar in some ways to where we are right

03:47now with this mid to late week storm, a little more snow to the north.

03:50But in general, can we expect more of this through mid month?

03:54Yeah, this is a very active pattern of a stormy pattern.

03:58The hits keep coming.

04:00Remember that from, what was it, one of the movings maybe, you know, a long time ago.

04:05Thank you, sir.

04:06May I have another?

04:07Thank you, sir.

04:08May I have another?

04:09And this is the pattern we're in.

04:10It moves out and here comes another one.

04:12But this storm over the weekend has a lot of similar characteristics to what we're dealing

04:17with in the short term, almost a twin in some respects of what we're dealing with in the

04:22short term.

04:23Maybe just a tad colder and then a little bit of a break for a day or two and more action

04:28coming up next week as well.

04:31And that one, Jeff, is looking colder and it looks like we may be dealing with more

04:35in the way of snow as opposed to mixed precipitation.

04:39All right.

04:40AccuWeather meteorologist and Northeast expert Dave Dombek, thanks so much for joining us,

04:43Dave.

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