Wednesday Snow: New Accumulation Estimates Released

A mid-week winter storm on a trajectory towards Pennsylvania has the potential to be huge, forecasters announced Monday night.

We could be looking at snow accumulations of up to 16 inches Wednesday. That's according to predictions by AccuWeather, which says that basically all of Eastern Pennsylvania and most of New Jersey will get between 8 to 16 inches in the second nor'easter to pass through the area in less than a week.

The National Weather Service has also upped its snowfall predictions. In a Monday evening briefing, the NWS now estimates parts of Eastern Pennsylvania from Doylestown up to the Poconos could see as much as 18 inches of snow. That's up sharply from NWS snowfall predictions made Monday morning, when forecasters with that agency predicted about 4 inches of snow for Philadelphia and its suburbs.

The entire Eastern Pennsylvania area is now under a winter storm watch from Tuesday evening through early Thursday morning.

Here is the latest map of the expected accumulations predicted by the National Weather Service. It was released Monday evening:

The storm will intensify rapidly and produce heavy, wet snow across the region, the NWS says. Snow will begin overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, and continue through the day. Snow could mix with rain during the daytime hours Wednesday.

Travel will be very difficult and hazardous with road closures possible, the NWS predicts.

"While this storm is still in watch phase, we recommend everyone with activities in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey to have contingency plans for altering travel and how to handle possible power related impacts," the NWS said in its winter storm watch. "Wednesday may be a good day to just stay home and be safe."

The region is already grappling to recover from a Friday nor'easter that left a half a million in Eastern Pennsylvania without power. Thousands of outages remain.

Photo: NWS