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Philly snow updates: Latest forecast, snowfall totals as massive storm approaches the city

A massive storm is making its way across the south and is expected to dump a massive amount of snow in the city.

Snow piled up at Broad and Washington in Philadelphia in January 2016, the city's last double-digit snowfall.
Snow piled up at Broad and Washington in Philadelphia in January 2016, the city's last double-digit snowfall. Read more
Michael Bryant / Staff photographer
What you should know

  1. A major snowstorm is expected to hit Philadelphia and the region this weekend. It would be the city’s first double-digit snowfall in 10 years.

  2. You can be fined up to $300 for not shoveling your sidewalk in Philly. Here are the rules.

  3. In classic Philadelphia fashion, everyone’s freaking out over the snow.

  4. Here are the Top 10 snowstorms in Philadelphia history.

Maps: How much snow and sleet will fall across the Philly region

Official National Weather Service forecasts say 12 to 18 inches of snow is possible across most of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia as the storm pushes through the region Saturday night to early Monday morning. More than 21 states were expected to experience at least moderate impacts from the storm, the weather service said.

The National Weather Service puts out forecasts for every few square miles of land in the United States four times a day through a system called the National Digital Forecast Database.

The map below displays that data. Use it to find how much snow is expected anywhere in the eastern United States. It will always show the most recent forecast for the next three days. 

More than a foot of snow is expected in Philly

Love it or hate it, more snow than Philly has seen in a long time is all but certain this weekend.

Forecasters continue to predict upwards of 18 inches of snow could fall in and around Philadelphia beginning Saturday night, which would mark the city’s first double-digit snowfall in a decade, almost to the day.

The situation is so serious, former NBC10 meteorologist Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz has come out of retirement and is doing forecasts on TikTok.

What time will the snow in Philly start and end?

The timing and duration of precipitation aren’t among the strong suits of computer models.

The weather service’s winter storm watch, which covers the entire region, all of Delaware, and most of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, is in effect from 7 p.m. Saturday until 1 p.m. Monday.

The daytime Saturday “looks fine if you have to get out,” said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

Wintry mix could limit snow totals. It’s a real Philadelphia tradition.

One thing arguing against mega-snow totals this weekend along I-95 and South Jersey is the likelihood sleet and freezing rain would mix with the snow at the height of the storm’s impacts.

That’s part of the cost of doing business in Philly winters.

Our biggest snows typically come from coastal nor’easters, so-named for their onshore winds the import warm air off the Atlantic to the upper atmosphere, the sources of precipitation. Sea surface temperatures off Atlantic City are in the upper 30s.

What are chances this snow storm is a bust?

In the chess matches between science and the nonlinear chaos of the atmosphere, chaos has been known to win.

One of the more notable busts occurred in January 2015 when forecasts called for an I-95 East Coast snowstorm so ferocious that the mayor of New York imposed a curfew.

Philly was supposed to get a foot or more, and ended up with an inch or two. That prompted the head of the Mount Holly weather service office to issue a public apology.