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08-01-2024
VIRGINIA/ CAROLINA: A winter storm is plowing through the mid-Atlantic and Northeast Saturday, and there’s another stronger one nipping at its heels that will affect a much wider area of the US.
The first storm will unleash up to a foot of snow through Sunday that could cause travel disruptions for the millions currently under winter storm alerts.
Freezing rain fell throughout early Saturday in the interior mid-Atlantic, including parts of Virginia and North Carolina where enough ice accumulated to make driving dangerous.
Heavy snow reached the interior Northeast in the late morning Saturday. A couple of inches of snow were already reported in central Pennsylvania by Saturday afternoon, ending the 346 day-long wait in the area for widespread significant snow.
Roads conditions deteriorated across the area as the snow started to accumulate and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation maps showed widespread slowdowns on roads.
Pennsylvania transportation crews started prepping roads for these conditions on Friday with the goal to “keep roads passable, not completely free of ice and snow,” a Pennsylvania DOT statement said.
Parts of Pennsylvania will see some of the storm’s worst, along with parts of the Appalachians and the interior Northeast and New England, including just to the west of Boston.
Heavy snow will spread northeast throughout Saturday, with the heaviest finally reaching New England by the late afternoon and continuing overnight into Sunday.
Visibility and road conditions will start to go downhill quickly as snow moves into new areas, with 1 to 2 inch per hour snowfall rates likely.
Governors and other officials in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island touted their preparations for the storm Saturday before the worst arrived and encouraged people not to venture out.
“We are ready for the storm. We ask you to do the same,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said at a news conference Saturday. “With advance notice, stay alert and stay home if you can.”
Major disruptions were less likely in the major cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and Washington, DC, in the snow-starved I-95 corridor. The storm’s track and insufficient cold air combined to limit snow chances to little, if any. Rain, or even a mix of wintry precipitation, is more likely but other cities, especially in New England, have higher snow chances. Several inches of snow were forecast in Boston. That may not live up to Boston’s notorious snowstorm past, but it could still be the city’s biggest snow from a single storm since February 25, 2022, when 8 inches fell and if forecasts in Hartford, Connecticut, come to pass, the storm would be the city’s biggest snowstorm since February 1, 2021, when 11 inches fell.
Crews in Boston also prepped streets, which were expected to remain open. They put drivers and and up to 800 pieces of equipment on standby should the need arise. (Int’l News Desk)
