Northeast Braces for Blizzard

A major snowstorm with blizzard-like conditions could drop a foot or more of snow across most parts of the Northeast as they gear up for the workweek right after the first real storm of the winter hit them with rain, several inches of snow and messy slush.

A storm system diving out of the Midwest has the potential to slowly coat from Philadelphia up to Massachusetts and Maine with snow beginning late Sunday night into Monday and intensifying greatly well into Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

“There’s the potential for a significant snowstorm to impact the entire Northeast U.S.,” meteorologist Patrick Maloit said.

Areas east of New York City could receive in excess of a foot of snow if the storm develops as feared, he said, stressing that’s still “a big if.”

The storm, which brewed late Saturday around the Iowa-Minnesota line, is likely to track down into the central Appalachians and then very slowly traverse its way through the Northeast states and reach the Gulf of Maine late Tuesday night, he said. The slow movement of the storm, he said, could help produce quite a bit of snowfall and blizzard-like or blizzard conditions: at least three hours of wind gusts of 35 mph or greater and visibility of less than a quarter of a mile because of snow or blowing snow.

The storm could stall before it tracks out to sea, bringing high wind, heavy precipitation and the potential for coastal flooding, the National Weather Service said. It would be the second wallop for the Northeast after what happened Saturday, when a storm crawling up the East Coast left a slushy, snowy coating from Pennsylvania to New England.

The storm dumped at least 9 inches of snow in parts of Pennsylvania and 8 inches in parts of New York, northern New Jersey and northwestern Connecticut, with widespread reports of more than 4 inches in inland areas across southern New England. Lighter amounts were reported in Philadelphia, Boston and New York City, where the snowfall stopped Saturday evening.

About 8 inches of snow fell in far eastern Maine before the storm moved out late Saturday night.

Numerous accidents were reported on the slick roads, but there were no major highway backups in the lighter weekend traffic. Police in Connecticut and Massachusetts were investigating the weather’s role in traffic accidents that killed two people Saturday afternoon.

In suburban New York, a man chased his dog onto ice covering a lake and they both fell through it. Police used a ladder to pull the man out of Massapequa Lake to safety and rescued his shivering dog as well. The man was treated at a hospital for hypothermia, a dangerously low body temperature.