Parade of winter storms to persist in Midwest, Northeast

Old Man Winter seems to be making up for last year's snow drought in the Northeast with an onslaught of seemingly never-ending storms. A quick-hitting storm will deposit more snow and cause slippery travel from the Midwest to the Northeast early this week, and an even harder-hitting and long-duration winter storm will follow on its heels.

What's fueling this parade of snowstorms? An Arctic air mass that has settled into the northern part of the Midwest and the interior Northeast in recent days - causing temperatures in some parts of Minnesota to plunge to as low as -40 F on Monday morning - is the catalyst. The frigid air was forced southward as the polar vortex was dislodged from above the North Pole, where it normally resides. And AccuWeather forecasters say that the cold air -and wintry weather - isn't likely to leave quickly.

Snowfall from the first system began creating slippery travel across portions of eastern Kansas, northern Missouri, southeastern Iowa, northern Illinois, northern Indiana, northern Ohio and the southern tier of Michigan on Monday morning. By Monday evening, the snow overspread parts of the central Appalachians and eastern Great Lakes region.

This image, captured on Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 9, 2021, shows that the enhanced clouds and heavier snowfall had shifted eastward to New England and the Hudson Valley of New York state. (CIRA at Colorado State/GOES-East)

"This storm is going to be a quick-mover, spreading snow across parts of the Midwest and into the Northeast through Tuesday," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Courtney Travis said. Snow may come down for only 8-12 hours with this storm. Along the system's northern edge, snow may start and stop a few times as well.

"Even if only a few inches of snow falls in most places, it is likely to be enough to accumulate on roadways and cause tricky and slowed travel," Travis said.

A general 1-3 inches of snow is forecast along much of the Interstate 70, 80 and 90 corridors from the Midwest to the central Appalachians with locally higher amounts of 3-6 inches. This light to moderate snowfall includes the major metro areas of Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Boston. New York City is forecast to be on the southern edge of the accumulating snow and rain is expected to fall at times.

AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures dipped into the teens, single digits and negatives on Monday night. Image taken around 3 a.m. EST. (AccuWeather)

For much of these corridors in the Midwest, there was no question as to whether or not the snow would accumulate on roads. Air temperatures were in the teens, single digits and even near zero F in some locations that experienced wintry precipitation through Monday night. Farther to the east in the snow area, where temperatures are forecast to range from the 20s to the lower 30s, some of the snow may melt or turn slushy on roads that are treated with ice-melting compounds.

Near the East Coast, where the storm will tap into Atlantic moisture and strengthen, a general 3- to 6-inch snowfall is forecast in central and southeastern parts of New England, southeastern New York state and northeastern Pennsylvania and part of northern New Jersey.

An AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 12 inches is anticipated with this storm.

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There has been a rather sharp southern edge to the snow from the Ohio Valley to the central Appalachians. As of Tuesday midday, a trained National Weather Service spotter reported that 10.8 inches of snow fell just to the southeast of Columbus, Ohio. Cincinnati received about 7.5 inches of snow from the storm that made for a slippery Tuesday morning commute. Only a few snowflakes were observed just south of the Ohio River in Huntington, West Virginia.

And following the dose of wintry weather, yet another round will arrive by the middle of the week.

"A second winter storm is set to sweep from the central Plains into the Northeast later this week, with a third storm potentially brewing for this coming weekend," Travis warned.

Take heed of the forecast this week, AccuWeather forecasters advise, and, for those running low on ice-melting substances, use the days on which snow won't fall to run out and buy more.

The storm that affected the mid-Atlantic and New England areas on Sunday unleashed 14 inches of snow on Pascoag, Rhode Island. Snowfall amounts of 6 to 12 inches were common from parts of northern Virginia to southeastern New England. However, this snowfall paled in comparison to the 1-3 feet of snow that fell on parts of the mid-Atlantic and New England a few days earlier amid a blockbuster storm. Allentown, Pennsylvania, picked up 27.3 inches of snow from the Feb. 1-2 storm.

With the 4.5 inches recorded in Central Park on Sunday, the city has now picked up 32.5 inches this season. Sunday's snowfall pushed the total above the seasonal average for New York City, which is 28.5 inches. Also, as of Sunday, the Big Apple had already picked up more than two times the normal snowfall during the entire month of February. This season's total is nearly 28 inches more than last season's total in which New York City officially recorded just 4.8 inches.

Philadelphia picked up 1.7 inches of snow with Sunday's storm, bringing the seasonal total to 16.6 inches. That's more than the normal snowfall for the winter to date of 12.4 inches, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). But, the City of Brotherly Love picked up a mere 0.3 of an inch of snow during the entire winter last year.

Nearby suburbs to the north of Philadelphia were buried under much heavier snowfall from the Sunday storm. Buckingham Township received 10.3 inches of snow.

The NWS office in Mount Holly, New Jersey, tweeted on Monday that there are no signs of the winter weather stopping anytime soon, calling it, "the winter that keeps on giving."

"If you are #TeamSnow, you have cause for cheer. We apologize to #TeamNoSnow as this is surely not what you expected," the NWS said.

Even as bitterly cold Arctic air is forecast to remain entrenched over much of the North Central states into the middle of the month, the coldest air has yet to settle into the Northeast. The harshest cold air is forecast to shift into the Northeast in the wake of the Wednesday to Friday storm. The lowest temperatures of the winter are likely to be recorded once the frigid air settles in.

This weekend, nighttime temperatures are likely to dip well below zero over the northern tier of the Northeast with some below-zero readings over the central Appalachians and perhaps low single-digit temperatures in some of the suburbs of the major mid-Atlantic and southern New England cities possible.

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