Philly is likely to skate by with leftovers from that massive winter storm, but icing is possible outside the city
Rains could end as snow, sleet, or ice in the region, but major impacts aren't expected. It will get colder in a hurry on Friday.
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For geographic coverage and duration, the massive winter storm that was pressing eastward could well be knighted as the most disruptive of the season for the eastern half of the country, but it is not expected to have much impact in the immediate Philadelphia region.
After a balmy overnight, temperatures were crashing Friday, and the National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery Counties until 7 p.m. for possible icing. Rain could change to freezing rain and sleet before it all ends late in the day or in the evening, the weather service said.
However, no significant ice or snow accumulation was expected, and the advisory did not apply to Philadelphia, Delaware County, or areas to the east and south.
Temperatures shot up to 57 degrees in Philadelphia during the early-morning hours and bare ground has reappeared throughout the region as all that warmer, moist air and rain in advance of the front has liquefied the remnants of the defeated snowpack.
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Temperatures dropped 10 degrees, from 57, to 47, between 8 and 9 a.m. Friday at Philadelphia International Airport, but the city was likely to escape any icing issues.
“I think in the city it’s more or less just going to rain and end there,” said Dan Pydynowski, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. He said that while a freeze-up was possible Friday night, increasing winds might help to dry out paved surfaces before temperatures dropped below freezing.
The rains were associated with areas of low pressure rippling along a potent east-moving front that has been churning up the atmosphere. Winter-storm warnings and advisories had been posted from Austin, Texas, to Caribou, Maine, and over 325,000 utility customers were without power Friday morning, according to PowerOutage.US, with more than 130,000 of those in Tennessee.
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That front eventually will cross the entire region and chill Philly. The forecast is for temperatures early Saturday to drop to near 20 in the city, and not get past 30 Saturday.
Highs Sunday are expected to be in the mid-30s but then are forecast to rise into the 40s during the workweek.
A coastal storm might pop up at midweek, said Pydynowski, but that was a long shot, and it wasn’t certain that precipitation from it would be snow.
Said Jonathan O’Brien, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Mount Holly office, “It looks kind of ho-hum for a while.”