New York, Northeast in Line for Weekend Snow Storm

A fast-moving storm will bring snow across New York City and the Northeast starting late Saturday and persisting through Sunday morning.

New York is forecast to get from 3 to 5 inches overnight Saturday as the first of four systems moves into the Northeast, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. The difference between who gets a lot of snow and who doesn’t will be a fine line, so a wobble in the storm’s track might mean more rain or sleet than snow in the city.

“It is the first of several storms that are going to affect the East Coast,” Oravec said. “Overall, we are in a pattern where we have a lot of systems moving west to east across the country.”

Coming during the weekend, the impact on commuters will be limited, but there may still be some transportation issues with delayed flights, trains and snarled traffic.

The snow will arrive after New York City got only 3 inches in January and only has 7.3 inches for the entire season, which is 8.8 inches less than normal. New York and the region have been mired in drought since last fall, when dryness sparked small wildfires.

Almost 63% of New York is classified as abnormally dry, with drought conditions clustered around the city and western Long Island, according to the US Drought Monitor. Drought covers all of New Jersey and nearly 97% of Connecticut.

Saturday’s storm will help alleviate some of those conditions and then three more storms will arrive next week, Oravec said. The first of those will arrive Tuesday and may bring a few more inches of snow to New York. The other two, coming later in the week, will probably be warmer and result in rain.

This weekend’s storm will miss Washington, but Boston may get from 8 to 12 inches, the National Weather Service said. A winter storm watch is in place from northern New Jersey to southern New Hampshire.

Top photo: Pedestrians walk through the snow during a storm in the Times Square neighborhood of New York, on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. A powerful winter storm descended on the Northeast on Tuesday, dropping snow across the region while snarling commutes, shutting schools and canceling hundreds of flights. Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg.