What to Expect From the Impending Winter Storm

Map via National Weather Service.

UPDATE: Mayor Nutter has announced a snow emergency for the city of Philadelphia starting at 6 a.m. Decision about district schools will be made in the morning.

ORIGINAL: With the region barely recovered from the icy nightmare of Sunday night and Monday morning, another major winter event is headed our way Wednesday into Thursday. Here’s what we’re expecting:

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning — as opposed to the lesser Winter Storm Watch or Winter Storm Advisory — for the entire Philadelphia area, from Atlantic City in the East to Harrisburg in the West and from Reading and Trenton in the North down throughout Delaware.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the warning wasn’t scheduled to go into effect until 11 p.m. on Wednesday night, so your evening commute shouldn’t be any worse tonight than your evening commute last night. Just a typically awful Philly commute.

But later on Wednesday night, the fun begins. The NWS is calling for a steady, accumulating snow with some sleet possible as well. The current prediction is for four to eight inches of snow for most of the city. This will all start out as rain before changing over to the wintry stuff after midnight. When you wake up in the morning, you should see significant snow on the ground and in the sky.

It remains to be seen how this snowfall will impact your life, as schools aren’t likely to make a call for some time. No major school closings or delays had been announced as of 4 p.m.

The Philadelphia Streets Department has already announced no trash pickup on Thursday, since they’ll be converting their trash trucks into snow plows to deal with the mess.

This forecast hasn’t changed much. All of the local weatherminds have been calling for a major storm for days. Hope you have your rock salt.

Follow @VictorFiorillo on Twitter.