Winter Storm Lexi will deliver a quick-hitting stripe of snow from the coastal mid-Atlantic into southern and eastern New England through part of Friday. Lexi was named on Thursday afternoon after winter storm warnings were issued by the National Weather Service for more than five million people in southeastern New England, exceeding The Weather Channel's population requirement for named winter storms.
(MORE: Science Behind Naming Winter Storms)
Current Radar
The cold front that brought rain to the South and Northeast Wednesday has stalled near the East Coast. Low pressure is developing along the Eastern Seaboard and will move northeast along that frontal boundary as colder temperatures filter in, setting the stage for this swath of locally heavy snow along the mid-Atlantic coast into southern and eastern New England.
Snowfall Forecast Through Fri. Night
Forecast Details:
- Rain changes to snow before sunrise Friday morning from parts of New Jersey and Long Island to southeast New England. Snow will also spread up the coast to Downeast Maine early Friday morning.
- By the morning rush, we expect precipitation to be all snow in New York City, Boston, Providence, eastern Connecticut and Long Island, and possibly the Jersey shore. Precipitation will change to snow over the rest of southeast coastal New England later in the morning Friday, creating slippery travel across portions of the I-95 corridor from D.C. to Maine.
- Snow should end in Long Island by midday, and should pull away from the rest of coastal New England by late Friday afternoon or evening.
- The heaviest accumulations, locally 6 inches or more, are expected in southeast New England, including parts of eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts, including much of the I-395 and I-495 corridors.
- Central and eastern Long Island may also see near or just over 6 inches, while areas to the north and west of Hartford, Connecticut and New York City will likely see only light accumulations.
- Snowfall rates of 1 inch per hour are possible in the heaviest snow zones. This snow will be a wet snow, meaning where heavy snow does develop, at least some scattered power outages are possible.
Winter Weather Alerts
Weather estimators spoke about Kayla for up to a week in advance of that storm and while it was a hard hitter in some areas others were modestly affected and in those areas resources were allocated to cover the worst case possibility - shutting down roads in advance of what turned out to be minor accumulations there - some say better safe than sorry and I agree; however with the recent storm Lexi many areas were ridiculously unprepared, schools open in the middle of the storm, hundreds of traffic eaccidents, very heavy snow leaving thousands without power at this time which now has responders reacting where there should have been better preparation against a forecast - in this case the lack there of or late there of - Seems that the weather makes estimators look silly.
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