Marathon snow and sleet storm to continue into Tuesday, with lingering impact on roads, services, and schools

After fitful spurts of falling and blowing snow, wind gusts to near 50 mph, coastal flooding, and a marathon of sleet, forecasters promised Monday that one of the most-enduring storms the region has experienced really is going to exit sometime Tuesday.

But not the impacts.

“I would expect another day off for people,” said Brad Rudolph, a spokesperson for the PennDot Philadelphia region, which includes places that were reporting up to 20 inches of snow that was still falling late Monday, “and give us a chance to mop up.”

“It’s going to be a slow melt,” said John Feerick, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., with highs in the 30s the next three days, and a whole lot of ice locked in that snow cover in and around Philadelphia.

» READ MORE: Another 1-3 inches of snow today in Philly; up to 20 inches reported in Upper Bucks; roads, services, and schools impacted by marathon storm

Near-blizzard conditions shut down parts of the state, and Randy Padfield, director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, urged Pennsylvanians to stay off the roads. Precipitation is likely into at least early Tuesday afternoon.

“We are particularly concerned with shipment and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines,” he said.

While snow amounts were less to the south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that was due in part to a siege of sleet that lasted 12 to 16 hours and cut down snow totals. Still, some areas in and around the city could end up with a foot total, including an additional one to two inches on Tuesday atop a cement-hard layer of ice as the storm sails ponderously out to sea. As of 7 p.m., 6.1 inches was measured officially at Philadelphia International Airport.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced that state offices and all six vaccine mega-sites would remain closed on Tuesday because of the storm. The governor declared a state of emergency across all 21 counties, some of which experienced prodigious snow totals, with up to 30 inches in Morris County.

Most school buildings in the region will be shut Tuesday, and once again Philadelphia public school students will be getting a half day. Philadelphia is closing its offices and is operating one COVID-19 vaccine center; people can choose to reschedule appointments. Montgomery County’s mass vaccination site will be closed.

Those are some of the lingering aftereffects of a storm that on Monday resulted in some familiar interference with the business of life.

“This is a big one,” Murphy warned ominously, telling people to stay in.

Philadelphia canceled trash collection for both Monday and Tuesday, and told residents to hold on to their items until next week. More than 100 flights at Philadelphia International Airport were canceled; commercial traffic was banned on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95, and that will remain in effect on Tuesday. SEPTA reported numerous delays and cancellations.

But SEPTA trains have been running about 85% empty even when it’s partly cloudy. And, yes, something was different about this storm besides the duration and the sleet fest.

Considering that the worst of it hit at rush hour on Monday, it likely would have been far more disruptive were it for not the lingering impacts of the coronavirus restrictions. They have imposed what at times has felt like an unwanted, unnatural perennial snow day.

» READ MORE: Is a snow day coming? It depends on the school district.

But having so many people working and staying at home and keeping off the streets, said Rudolph, has been a plus for highway crews, “giving them a chance to navigate the roads.”

When the snow was falling heavily late Monday in the outer reaches of Bucks and Montgomery County, he said, three more inches were accumulating on some freshly plowed roads by the time the trucks got back to the garage.

As for the sleet, he said, “it’s a nightmare for us,” especially with the snow falling atop it.

Sleet was in the forecast on Sunday, but not 12 to 16 hours of it. Meteorologists did call for the precipitation to become heavy snow late Monday, but the totals from Philadelphia south and east likely will end up at least a few inches shy of some of the earlier projections.

» READ MORE: 25 years ago, 30.7 inches of snow fell in Philadelphia in two days

A stubborn layer of warm air near the Delaware River kept the sleet onslaught going, said Jonathan O’Brien, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly.

Those annoying pebbles of ice result from snow melting while on its way to earth then refreezing when it escapes the warm layer. It likely had some beneficial effects. It put a cap on the fallen snow, so it would cut down on drifting, said Feerick, and it does find favor with power companies because it bounces off tree branches, rather than glomming on to them and weighing them down.

Storms rarely obey the edicts of meteorologists or computers, and this was no exception. It was a classic “Miller-B” storm, named for the researcher who came up with the classification. It had its origins in a feature that traveled across the country, weakened as it came eastward, redeveloped on the Atlantic Coast, and became a potent nor’easter.

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Miller-Bs are fairly common in winter, but usually they mature too far north to cause heavy snow around Philadelphia. This one did target areas north of the city ferociously, but also gave Philadelphia its second six-plus-inch storm of the season.

As it happens, the storm will be winding down on Groundhog Day. If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, that would allegedly signal six more weeks of winter.

Be skeptical.

It’s supposed to be snowing Tuesday morning in Punxsutawney.

Inquirer staff writers Tom Fitzgerald, Kristen A. Graham, and Sean Collins-Walsh contributed to this article.