Mid-Atlantic Snowstorm Targeting DC, Baltimore Sunday

Feb 17, 2012; 10:00 AM ET

Soon after clobbering portions of Kentucky, Tennessee and southern Ohio with snow, a snowstorm will take aim on a large part of Virginia, portions of Maryland, Delaware, southern Pennsylvania and south Jersey.

For much of this area, the snowfall is likely to be the biggest of the winter season thus far. The snow will be heavy and wet in most locations.

The heart of the snowstorm in the mid-Atlantic states is aiming for areas from Beckley, W.Va., to Charlottesville and Winchester, Va. In these areas, most and perhaps all of the precipitation with the storm will fall as snow with the potential for a foot. The storm will get an early start in these locations, beginning late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

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However, substantial accumulating snow is also likely in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and as far northeast as part of the Philadelphia area, even though some of the precipitation will fall in the form rain, or some of the snow will melt as it falls on roadways during the daylight hours

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The concern in these cities and areas along, near and east of I-95 in this region including Dover, Del., and Richmond, Va., is that colder air will invade the storm Sunday evening, turning rain over to accumulating snow, or allowing prior melting snow to stick.
Folks venturing out on the roadways Sunday evening may see roads turn from wet to slushy to very slippery in a matter of minutes as the sun's effect diminishes and temperatures drop a few degrees.
As a result, in addition to a stretch of I-95, other major highways that will impacted by the snowstorm include I-64, I-66, I-68, I-70, I-76, I-77, I-79, I-81 and I-83.
The storm track as well as intensity of the precipitation is still a bit of a concern.
Unless the storm tracks much farther north than now anticipated, the snowfall would avoid much of New England, New York, Indiana and northern Pennsylvania and Ohio.
This storm is likely to have a rather sharp northern edge to the accumulating snow area. A person driving south may go from no snow to several inches of snow in a matter of a dozen miles.
A northward or southward shift in the storm by 50 to 100 miles can have a dramatic effect on the northern extent of the snow area. The maps within this storm represent the consensus of AccuWeather.com meteorologists.

light snow falling during the day will struggle to accumulate with the temperatures forecast .

We wish to remind people that high temperatures forecast for a particular area in this situation may occur prior to the storm's arrival. Once precipitation begins to fall in earnest, temperatures can fall dramatically even during the middle of the day, unlike that of a sunny day.

A storm that brought rain and snow to California at midweek will reorganize along the western Gulf Coast early this weekend and will take aim at the Southeast, the mid-South and mid-Atlantic Saturday night, Sunday into Sunday night.

The same high pressure keeping the storm out of the Great Lakes and New England will provide just enough cold air on the northern fringe of the storm for accumulating wet snow.

With this being Presidents Day weekend, snowfall of this sort would be a tremendous boon for ski resorts in part of the central Appalachians.

The storm will also bring substantial rain and the risk of severe weather to the Southeast this weekend. While the rain will be very beneficial falling on drought-stricken areas, this has the potential to be a very dangerous outbreak of violent thunderstorms and tornadoes, along with a flash flooding risk.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/midatlantic-snowstorm-targetin-1/61711