5:50 PM | ***Wild weather tonight including heavy snow and possible thunder as we enter the final phase of the storm***

Discussion

The final phase of the “Great Storm of 2014” will arrive tonight and it could generate some wild weather conditions. The upper-level low will pass over the Mid-Atlantic region over the next few hours and the result will be “summer-like” snow showers and isolated “thunder snows” are possible as well. The precipitation could start out briefly as rain and/or sleet, but will soon changeover to all-snow as colder air wraps around the storm system into the region. The “cold conveyor belt” region of the storm system located on the northwest side of the surface low pressure center often contains “bands” of precipitation and any of these “bands” can produce significant snow in a short period of time. New accumulations of up to 6 inches are not out of the question in areas that experience “banding snow” and this will result in total accumulations from this storm as high as 20 inches in some of the N and W suburbs of the big cities. All of the activity will wind down by early morning Friday when this storm ends up in the record books for much of the Mid-Atlantic region.