Springtime Snow Possible for Northeast

By AccuWeather.com Senior Expert Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski
State College, Pa. — AccuWeather.com reports in light of the recent warm weather in the Northeast allowing trees to bud and flowers to bloom, it would seem hard to imagine a late-season snowstorm could hit part of the region over the next week or so. In fact there are two possibilities for just that.
In the past storms have delivered accumulating snow in parts of the Northeast well into the spring.
Some old-timers may recall the Palm Sunday Snowstorm that brought 1 to 2 feet of snow in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area during March 29-30, 1942.
More recently, a monster snowstorm dropped up to 3 feet of snow on parts of New England and eastern New York state spanning March 30 to April 1, 1997.
Snowstorms have occurred as late as May in the Northeast. A storm dropped up to a foot of snow on Massachusetts spanning May 9-10, 1977.
Strange things have happened and given this winter it would seem almost fitting.
Soon after the current storm rolls by over the next couple of days, the door will be opened for cold air to drain southward from central and eastern Canada into the Northeast U.S.
The pattern, although destined to be brief, is similar to the pattern that delivered the big storms from this winter.
The first storm in question will dive to the southern Plains at midweek, then will turn northeastward late in the week, running into the fresh cold air arriving over the mid-Atlantic.
Depending on the track of that storm, a chilly rain over the Tennessee Valley and southern Appalachians could transform into a zone of heavy wet snow over portions of northern Virginia and West Virginia, eastward to the northern Delmarva, southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
A second storm expected to roll into the Pacific Northwest late this week could take a similar dip to the southern Plains and then a path up the Atlantic Seaboard near the end of the month with a zone of drenching rain and a band of heavy wet snow inland.
Snowstorms this time of year are tricky even 24 hours away, let alone 5 to 10 days out. However, given the pattern expected unfold for the next 1 to 2 weeks, some areas from the central Plains to the Northeast will receive accumulating snow. If most of that happens during the night time hours, it could make for slushy and slow travel.
The bottom line: While the chance of a heavy snowfall becomes less and less each passing day during this time of the year, the chance is far from zero this year in the upcoming pattern.