A storm likened to a freight train — powerful and fast — will bring half a foot of snow to many parts of the East Coast and New England on Sunday, just days after another storm left two or more feet of snow.
Some of the coldest weather of the season — with temperatures in the single digits or below zero — will follow hard on the heels of the storm. And if that’s not enough of a reminder of winter, forecasters said there could be more unsettled stormy weather to come this week.
Winter storm warnings for Sunday were posted for parts of Connecticut, northeastern New Jersey, New York City and Long Island, the National Weather Service said on Twitter. The storm is expected to last from sunrise to sunset and make for treacherous travel on Super Bowl Sunday, forecasters said.
“It might be fast moving, but don’t take it lightly,” warned Steven DiMartino, a meteorologist and owner of NY NJ PA Weather in Freehold, N.J. “I would not be on the road tomorrow morning or early in the afternoon. Stay off the roads and let those guys do their jobs. Stay home and have a nice cup of coffee.”
The next wintry blast is diving across the Southern Plains on Saturday and will help spin up low pressure along the North Carolina coast, driving cold air into the Deep South, said Ben Gelber, a meteorologist with the Ohio television station NBC4.
“This will bring snow all the way down to the north Georgia mountains early Sunday, where a winter storm warning is in effect for several inches of snow, and a wintry mix could reach Atlanta Sunday morning,” he said.
The effects of the storm will appear in western Virginia and the Washington metro area and make its way through Philadelphia, New York City, Connecticut, Boston and Cape Cod, Mass., before moving on to Nova Scotia, Mr. DiMartino said.
“This one’s like a freight train,” he added. “It comes in and blasts us with snow before it leaves.”
While most areas can expect accumulations of four to eight inches, some isolated spots in the Philadelphia-New York-Boston corridor could see as much as 10 inches, though Mr. DiMartino said it was difficult to say precisely where.
The storm could produce intense precipitation — snowfall rates of one or more inches an hour, he said.
The heaviest accumulations will most likely be along the Interstate 95 corridor, from Washington and Baltimore to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston, Mr. Gelber said.
By late afternoon or early evening on Sunday, the snow should end, said Matthew Wunsch, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Upton, N.Y.
“So the entire event essentially takes place over the course of, like, 12 hours, whereas the system that we just had kind of lingered around the area for several days,” he said.
A storm this week slathered New York City in 17.2 inches of snow. It was the biggest snowstorm since a record-setting blizzard of 2016, the National Weather Service said. Other areas, including parts of New Jersey, got 30 inches or more of snow.
Mr. DiMartino said clashing systems could mean an unsettled spell of weather. Snow could come again on Tuesday and Thursday into Friday as an arctic air mass from the north pushes south and the influences of La Niña push north, he said.
On the East Coast, temperatures will drop into the single digits after the storm, causing considerable icing.
“It’s going to be a mess on Monday morning,” Mr. DiMartino said.
Mr. Gelber said the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest could see temperatures of 10 to 20 degrees below zero from the Dakotas to Wisconsin and northern Iowa. “Subzero morning readings will be felt in Chicago by midweek,” he said.
For fans of Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog that humans ceremonially use as a prognosticator of what’s still to come this season, all of this comes as no surprise: On Tuesday, he predicted six more weeks of winter.
Allyson Waller contributed reporting.
