Major Winter Storm Threatens Millions In Northeast This Weekend

A powerful winter storm is expected to dump snow and ice across the Midwest and Northeast this weekend. 

Early indications suggest wintry precipitation is possibly Saturday as the winter storm transitions from Midwest states to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, while heavy snow could fall in some areas. 

We noted on Monday how the Global Forecast System (GFS) data shows Old Man Winter will return to the Northeast on Friday with average temperatures from Washington, D.C., to Boston around 25 to 34 degrees. This could make conditions ripe for a snowstorm over the weekend. 

The National Weather Service (NWS) is projecting that snow and ice could be seen on early Saturday for Mid-Atlantic states, with mixed precipitation in the afternoon. The further north, the higher the probability of significant snowfall. 

“Although confidence continues to increase on the potential for a winter storm for parts of our area (above average confidence for this time range, in fact), it is still too early to get into specifics on timing and amounts of different precipitation types given … this is still 4 to 5 days away,” NWS said Tuesday. 

Henry Margusity, a meteorologist for Weather Madness, provides several weather charts that indicate the storm could quickly impact tens of millions of folks in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast this weekend. 

Margusity provides another chart showing the winter precipitation could start early Saturday morning in the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area and move up the Interstate-95 corridor in the Northeast through Saturday afternoon into the evening. 

“As you can see on the image above, this will be a widespread snow and ice event covering many states from the Plains to the Northeast. The snow will be in general 1-6 inches but locally 8-9 inch amounts will occur. Ice is probably marginal in this storm as the snow will change to just rain in the changeover locations shown in pink on the map,” Margusity said.