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.
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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.