Big storm expected Saturday

UPDATE: Ha ha, turns out climate change is turning this into a “rain event”:

Our passing nor’easter is dealing with an unusually large amount of warm air for this time of year, which means that most of our precipitation during the day is rain and not snow. In the far northwest suburbs, a change back to a bit of snow and ice is possible in the late morning or early afternoon as the precipitation winds down. Snow will accumulate up to 1-3″ across most areas away from the Shore before dawn, but at least some of this will be washed away by rain during the day. The Lehigh Valley will see snow for a longer period with some rain and sleet possible for a time, which means around 3″ to 4″ of snow accumulation and slicker roads. For central Delaware and southern New Jersey, a quick coating of snow will be washed away by .75″ to 1″ of rain. Moisture moves off the Jersey coast late in the day. The high is 39.

I went to the store this morning, figuring I’d beat the rush. (It worked. I even got a parking spot close to the door.) But for the first time, the store public address system was trying to get shoppers worked up: “Don’t be stuck inside without the items you need!” I’ve never heard that kind of fearmongering before:

JANUARY 24th VERY DIFFICULT Forecast coming up for very early Saturday morning, through early Saturday evening. Overnight few computer models backed away from intensity of storm, but as of early this morning shifted back to possible moderate to HIGH IMPACT WINTER STORM. Storm will be developing along the N.C on Friday night, the exact intensity, and track will determine how much snow vs rain. Right now it appears a good bit of mixing from I95 Southeast across SNJ and Delaware. Which would keep amounts of frozen down with more in the way of liquid.North west of the I95 corridor could see significant to possibly heavy accumulations. However if storm track is further off-shore would mean more frozen for I95 corridor but less in the way of snow North and west of corridor. Right now leaning to a mix for city and points east starting early Saturday morning with a changeover to rain and then perhaps a changeover back to snow before ending. North and west of I95 more in the way of accumulating snow/sleet, especially across WESTERN/NORTHERN CHESTER COUNTY, NORTHWEST MONTGOMERY, AND UPPER BUCKS.

HIGH UNCERTAINTY EXISTS IN FINAL RESOLUTION. WILL REFINE, ADJUST AS MORE DATA ARRIVES. Silly to post possible snow amounts at this time as I simply don’t know until I see a couple of more computer runs, and would be in error to post anything right now due to the very wide margin of error at this time.