Snow, for real
Snow is all but a certainty for Saturday. A winter-storm watch is up for Reading, with maybe an inch in Philly.
If the meteorologists and their computer models have it right, the region is about to see an October rarity: Snow.
The National Weather Service now has the s-word in the official forecast for Philadelphia for Saturday night, and Dave Dombek at Accu-Weather says that even the city could see an inch.
If that happens, it would be first measurable snow in October in Philadelphia since 1979, and only the third October snow in the period of record.
The weather service has hoisted an actual winter-storm watch as close by as Reading, and Dombek says it's possible that Philly's northern and western suburbs could see a substantial accumulation.
But even to the north and west, this is unlikely to be a road-clogger, since most of the precipitation will fall during the day -- and on a weekend -- and road surfaces are still quite toasty.
The official temperature has yet to drop below 42 in Philadelphia this season.
"It's not going to stick to the roads," said Valerie Meola in the weather service's Mount Holly office. "There's still a lot of leaves on those trees, so a heavy wet snow it could be more problematic."
That could mean downed limbs and power outages, and Dombek said that is a legitimate concern.
In the end, the official amounts may not be all that impressive, but Dombek points out that any snow would represent an extaordinary event.
As he points out, it's hard enough to get snow around here in early December.
It also would have to be viewed as a triumph for the European forecast models, which have been showing the storm for days, arguing against other models -- not to mention common sense.