Winter's about to deliver another major wallop.
What the National Weather Service describes as an "explosively developing nor'easter" is forecast to hammer on Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Northern Delaware with up to 18 inches of snow.
A winter-storm warning is in effect from 4 p.m. tomorrow to midnight Wednesday.
The storm comes before the region could finish digging out from the deepest February snow on record.
The official forecast calls for 10 to 18 inches, with the potential for a tad more.
For Philadelphia, the weather service said the chance of at least 9 inches of snow is 90 percent, 12 inches 75 percent.
Two bursts of heavy snow are expected across the region. Eight inches is likely to accumulate between tomorrow evening and Wednesday morning. An even more intense burst of heavy snow will hit the Philadelphia area Wednesday afternoon and last until about midnight, the NWS said in a 4 p.m. forecast.
The Midwest storm has only reached Illinois as of this morning, and the North Carolina storm has yet to develop.
Still, it's unlikely this "double-barrelled system" will prove to be a dud. "The scenario where we get nothing is one of the less probable ones," he said.
With possibly strong winds, especially at the Shore, blizzard warnings could be issued, as they were for coastal Delaware and New Jersey before the last storm arrived Friday afternoon.
That "Snowmageddon" dumped more than two feet of snow at Philadelphia International Airport, and the surrounding counties all the way to the Shore saw a foot and a half or more.
This time, counties farther north aren't likely to be spared. The storm watch in effect tomorrow night to Wednesday night extends from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore past Scranton - and, as of early this afternoon, to New York City, Long Island and even Boston.
For more on the forecast, go to http://go.philly.com/weather.
