1:30 PM | Virginia suburbs just west of DC getting slammed with snow; no problems around here through at least the afternoon hours

Discussion

The storm affecting much of the Mid-Atlantic continues to slowly intensify at this hour as it moves off the southeastern Virginia coastline. Rain is currently falling across SE PA, southern New Jersey and the Delmarva Peninsula region while heavy snow is piling up in areas just to the west of the District of Columbia. For example, significant accumulations and heavy snow are being reported in the Virginia towns of Charlottesville, Culpepper, Manassas and Reston. In DC itself, there has been a battle going on between snow and rain during the past few hours. Winds are quite strong throughout the Mid-Atlantic region with 40-50 mph gusts common inland and up to 60 mph along the New Jersey and Delmarva coastlines. In fact, the Jersey Shore is taking a real pounding and there are waves heights of up to 20 feet being reported from buoys about 25 miles off the coast of Cape May, NJ.

The rain/snow line associated with this storm across southern Pennsylvania has not advanced appreciably during the past few hours so it looks like the rain will continue in SE PA during the rest of the afternoon with no problems on the roads (other than the strong winds). Late in the day or early tonight, colder air will wrap into the system and the rain could change to snow across SE PA, but, at the same time, drier air will be trying to cut off the precipitation limiting chances for anything appreciable so the result should be at most only light accumulations - perhaps a coating to an inch or two. By tomorrow, the storm will be situated well off the east coast, but, in an unusual fashion, it will tend to rotate back around over the next couple of days and it could very well spin some snow back into the Mid-Atlantic region from the northeast to the southwest later tomorrow night into early Friday. Finally, much milder weather heads our way later this weekend.