Final Forecast for Storm Impacts on March 2-3rd, 2014

A complicated storm is expected to impact the Philadelphia and New York City metropolitan areas tomorrow evening on through Monday with periods of moderate to heavy snow throughout the region.

The storm will start to come together tomorrow afternoon as an Arctic cold front drops south producing rain and snow showers along the cold front boundary in the afternoon.  The rain and snow showers to will change to snow for all locations as temperatures fall from the mid 30's to lower 40's into the mid to upper 20's over the interior and upper 20's to lower 30's along the coast.  All locations will be below freezing by 9 PM on Sunday.

At this point, a strong disturbance currently over the West coast will move along the stalling Arctic cold front leading to snow to develop throughout the entire Mid Atlantic from Connecticut on south through Virginia.  However, as the Arctic air continues to build south, so will the dry air.  As a result, the storm will feature more light snow with periods of breaks over the northern interior from Connecticut to northern Pennsylvania thus leading to only light snowfall accumulations.  A moderate to heavy snowfall can be expected over east central Pennsylvania, much of central New Jersey, New York City, and Long Island with 5 to 10 inches of snow.  This area will have less snow than extreme southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey due to strong mesoscale banding expected to the south of Philadelphia where 10 to 15 inches of snow can be expected.  If the banding, heavy snow is able to shift further north than expected, than snowfall amounts in zone 2 over a foot would be  possible, but currently not expected.  Sleet will mix in at times with the snow due to warm pockets of air at the mid levels.