An already active winter is about to shift into overdrive as a trio of storms over the weekend and into next week deliver snow to the Midwest, East and possibly as far south as the Gulf Coast.
It’s all happening because the coldest air of the season is working its way over most of the US. The Arctic air from Siberia will even reach southern areas usually spared from such bitter cold.
Forecasts for two of the three upcoming winter storms are tricky and more uncertain than usual. But the forecast for the first storm is clear cut.
It will drop a mix of rain and 1 to 3 inches of snow over parts of the Midwest and Interior Northeast Saturday before it exits by Sunday morning. It will impact cities including Indianapolis, Detroit and Cleveland Saturday morning before bringing the same mix of snow and rain into the interior Northeast by the afternoon.
Another, potentially more potent storm will form in the central Appalachians as soon as the last one departs. It will strengthen quickly while spreading wintry slop over the mid-Atlantic and into southern New York and southern New England Sunday afternoon. Precipitation will spread north through the remainder of New York and New England over the rest of Sunday. Snow will fall in more inland locations while rain mixes in with the snow at times closer to the coast.
Exactly how much snow piles up Sunday, particularly in the heavily populated and highly traveled Interstate-95 corridor, depends on how close to the coast the storm travels.
Current forecasts show it staying just off the coast as it moves north through Sunday night which could bring widespread amounts of 1 to 3 inches of snow from Washington, DC, north to New England. Higher amounts of 3 to 6 inches are more likely just west of the I-95 corridor.
If the storm tracks closer to the coast than currently expected, it could tap into additional moisture and snow amounts could increase by a few inches — even for areas closer to the coast like New York City and Boston.
The storm will wrap up by Monday morning everywhere except far northern New England. The coldest air of the season and breezy conditions will arrive in its wake. Temperatures Monday from New England to the Southeast will be anywhere from 15 to just over 30 degrees below normal for what’s already the coldest time of the year.
Temperatures in Washington, DC, will drop into the teens Sunday night and will be stuck in the 20s Monday, so whatever snow falls Sunday will stick around for the coldest Inauguration Day in 40 years. Fresh snow on the ground, bitterly cold air and wind gusts to 30 mph at times will generate wind chills — what the air feels like when combined with wind — in the single digits for the entire day.
Unusually far south snow?
Confidence is growing in another round of winter weather in the South next week after snow and ice brought the region to a standstill last week.
This southern storm could develop much farther south than the last. Normally, a storm like this would bring rain to the Gulf Coast’s I-10 corridor, but the intense cold spreading over the country will open the door for winter weather there.
A wintry mix could begin in central Texas as early as Monday evening and increase in coverage and intensity by Tuesday morning. Some snow, sleet and freezing rain could expand east throughout Tuesday along the I-10 corridor and potentially farther north into more of the Southeast — possibly including northern Florida — overnight.
Almost every element of the forecast — timing, location, precipitation type and intensity — is soaked in uncertainty and won’t be settled until the exact track of the storm is locked into by forecast models over the weekend.
It’s hard to overstate how rare accumulating snow is in the Deep South, particularly along the Gulf Coast. So even a small chance of snow or ice is significant for the region.
Measurable snow has only happened a dozen times at Houston’s Hobby Airport since 1932 and eight times since 1948 in New Orleans and 1940 in Tallahassee, Florida. All three locations have a chance at it next week.
