Up to 3 inches of snow reported in the Philly region ahead of a frigid solstice weekend

When the astronomical winter begins Saturday, evidently much of the region is going to wake up to a snow cover on what will be by far the coldest weekend of the young season.

By 10 p.m., 3 inches had been measured by trained spotters in Skippack and Willow Grove, Montgomery County, the National Weather Service reported, with several reports of an inch or more outside the city as snow was continuing.

Doylestown police advised motorists that snow was sticking on the roads, and Bucks County was under a winter weather advisory for 2 to 4 inches of snow.

It is unlikely that whatever will have fallen will have much of an impact on what typically is one of the busiest weekends of the year for holiday shopping and activities. But meteorologists had been cautioning that they weren’t quite sure what’s going to be falling. Or precisely when. Or how much.

And some of the amounts reported Friday night were well exceeding what had been expected.

You’ve seen this movie before?

Intermittent light rain; that holiday favorite, the so-called wintry mix, and then snow moved into the region Friday, and forecasters said Philly could gets first measurable snow of the season before it ends early Saturday.

Dave Dombek, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., said the best shot for accumulating snow in the city itself would be during the early morning hours when surface temperatures may drop below freezing, assuming the precipitation continued.

But the atmosphere still was hiding some of its cards.

Cameron Wunderlin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s office in Mount Holly, had warned that this was “a really challenging forecast.”

What is a near certainty is that the first two days of winter actually are going to feel like winter. Winds could gust to 35 mph Saturday, Dombek said, as temperatures hold in the 30s and then plummet.

At the instant of the solstice, when the sun beams directly over the Tropic of Capricorn at 4:21 a.m. Philadelphia time on Saturday, temperatures are expected to be near freezing.

It will likely not get out of the 30s on Saturday, fall into the teens by Sunday morning, not make it to 30 degrees during the day, and drop to 10 to 15 Monday morning, forecasters say. It hasn’t been that cold here since Jan. 20, the last time it failed to get out of the 20s.

Snow on the ground Saturday is in play in the city, Dombek said.

A storm approaching from the west was transferring its energy to another storm off the coast. .

Late Friday night into early Saturday, Dombek said, if snow persisted it may become cold enough for snow to stick even in Philadelphia.

The odds of an inch of snow on the ground on the morning of Dec. 25 in Philly are less than 10% in any given year, according to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

Let’s just say that this year, they are even lower.

Temperatures will moderate Monday and Tuesday, with daytime highs Tuesday in the upper 30s.

Dombek said that a moisture-challenged front may set off a rain or snow shower on Tuesday, but Christmas will be dry, with highs in the low 40s, about where they should be this time of year.