After Philly’s biggest snow of the season, expect wind gusts to 40 mph and prolonged cold

The timing couldn’t have been much worse for the morning-rush commuters or for the hundreds of thousands of kids who were so looking forward to spending a Monday in their classrooms.

Officially it was Philly’s biggest snow of the season — a hefty 1.8 inches of powder-puff landed at the airport — and while the totals in and around the city fell a few measures short of even the relatively modest expectations, it appears that the wintry landscape is going to be be staying around for awhile.

In fact, even though it isn’t snowing, Tuesday is going to be decidedly harsher than the first day of the workweek. Winds have been gusting to 30 mph, blowing snow back onto roads and driving wind chills into single digits. Gusts could ready 40 mph during the day with below-freezing temperatures.

Blowing snow will be a more significant hazard in areas of southern Delaware and the Jersey shore where up to 10 inches accumulated.

» READ MORE: How much snow fell across the Philly region

Monday was a day for dusting off moth-balled sleds, but on Tuesday, “It’s not going to be fun,” said Britta Merwin, a meteorologist with Fox Weather.

And forecasters are tracking another storm threat for the weekend — this one a potential nor’easter — but several days out, the computer models were having their differences.

The heaviest amounts — 6 to 10 inches — were reported in central and southern Delaware and Cape May County.

In the immediate Philadelphia area, snow totals generally were under 2 inches, shy of the calls for 2 to 4. But in terms of the business of life, it felt like a real, live snow day.

That probably had to do with not only the novelty of the sight of snow, but the timing. It began falling just before daybreak, prompting the Philadelphia School District to cancel in-class instruction, as did most of the schools in the neighboring counties.

Jordan Rock, who was making a snow-day visit to Clark Park in West Philly with his daughter, said that the two of them had somewhat different reactions after learning school was canceled.

“Definitely pure excitement from my daughter, and for me, a little bit of excitement and a little bit of disappointment that I couldn’t send my kid back to school after the winter break,” he said.

All Philly government offices were closed, and the Philadelphia Parking Authority declared a ticketing holiday for vehicles parked at meter spaces.

The snow had impacts at the airport, where the government observers measure the stuff, with nearly 300 inbound and outbound delays by mid-afternoon, according to flight tracker FlightAware.

PennDot reduced speeds on major roadways, including the turnpike and I-95, for a few hours, but no major traffic incidents were reported as highway crews had several days’ notice about the potential hazards.

» READ MORE: See pictures of the Philly region’s first snowfall of 2025

The storm literally ran into a wall, meteorologists said — a dry wall.

Unlike a coastal storm, the source of the region’s heaviest snows, this one traveled west to east generating prodigious amounts of snow and ice along the way.

The storm was interacting with very dry cold air pressing southward that kept the precipitation from advancing to the north. The northern-most point to experience an inch was in Luzerne County, about 120 miles north of Philadelphia, said Bob Larson, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

Areas to well to the south of Philly were able to squeeze out more juice from the storm.

Said Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano, “It’s a really beautiful snow. It’s very surreal and serene and calming. My grandkids are looking out the window, they’re mesmerized.”

The region may be in for its longest stretch of significantly below-normal temperatures since February 2021.

Readings are expected to stay below freezing until at least until Friday, and those annoying persistent winds that characterized last week are due to return for the rest of the workweek. Early morning lows are forecast to be in the teens and low 20s.

The city will continue operating 20 warming centers for those experiencing homelessness and others who may happen to lose heat.

The weekend outlook is clouded by the potential for a major coastal storm, said AccuWeather’s Larson. The main U.S. computer model suggests that it could be potent one that would affect the I-95 corridor.

However, the European model, which Larson said generally did better with the Monday storm, wasn’t on board with the threat as of Monday. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, it appears that much of the region will have something it hasn’t seen in quite a while — a snow mantle with staying power, meaning more sledding opportunities for those willing to bond with the chill.

The sleds were evident in Clark Park as kids whooshed down and trekked back up with their brightly colored plastic toboggans, while parents looked on with coffee thermoses, sometimes romping in the snow themselves.

Aurey Gordon, 8, and her friend Jenna Cole, 10, shared a green and gray sled to speed down the slopes. They were just getting started; Gordon had big plans for the rest of her snow day at the park.

By lunchtime, It already had been a long day for some of the adults.

“We were hoping to sleep late, but both kids were up at 5 a.m. with excitement,” said Jarrod Green about his two sons.

Both boys declined to comment for this story.

They were too busy sledding.

Staff writers Beatrice Forman and Rob Tornoe contributed to this article.