Sloppy storm bring rain, snow to Eastern USA
A storm bringing drenching rain and a flood threat to the Southeast on Friday will head toward the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast overnight and into Saturday, delivering a messy mix of snow, sleet and rain.
On Friday, rain and thunderstorms moved over the Gulf Coast, the Southeast and the southern part of the Mid-Atlantic region.
Because of the lack of Arctic air, the storm won't be a big snow producer, AccuWeather said. It will dump 1 to 5 inches of snow Saturday from the southern Appalachians to southeastern New England, according to Weather Channel meteorologist Michael Palmer.
Washington is unlikely to see much accumulation, while residents of Philadelphia, New York City and Boston will have to do some shoveling.
A few spots from central Connecticut to east-central Massachusetts could see as much as 8 inches of snow, Palmer said. Blowing and drifting snow is possible, as well as the potential for damaging wind gusts and coastal flooding in southern New England.
"Where the snow is heavy and wet, there could be trees coming down with power outages," AccuWeather meteorologist Elliot Abrams said.
The weather could cause slippery driving conditions in New England.
"It's a good thing it's happening this weekend," National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson in Taunton, Mass., said Friday. "If this happened during a weekday, it could be really slow and messy."
Friday, the heaviest rain, along with some thunderstorms, will occur in Georgia, the Florida Panhandle and the Carolinas.
The next storm on the agenda is a fairly strong clipper system that will work its way down from Alberta into the Upper Midwest by Saturday night, the National Weather Service predicted. It should begin to spread light to moderate (2 to 4 inches) snow across Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan on Sunday.
That same storm will then head toward the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic on Sunday and into Monday, probably delivering 1 to 4 inches of snow across the region.
Contributing: The Associated Press
