NYC, Northeast Forecast Calls for Slushy Friday Morning Commute

(Bloomberg) -- New York and Boston face a slushy commute Friday morning, and Washington could be in for another round of snow as more winter weather heads for the East Coast.

All three cities will likely start with snow early Friday, with accumulations ranging from a coating to 2 inches (5 centimeters), said Rob Carolan, owner of Hometown Forecast Services, which provides outlooks to Bloomberg Radio. Early Wednesday, computer guidance showed the snow potentially changing over to rain in Boston before it ends late Friday.

Snow will likely wrap up in New York by about 11 a.m. Friday.

“It is a fast mover. It's going to jet through the area and that should keep the moisture down,” Carolan said.

The exact track of the storm will determine its punch, and there are a quite a few things that could change between now and late Thursday.

“That obviously is going to be the one that we are going watch,” Brian Hurley, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center, said in an interview. Currently, winter weather advisories stretch from Virginia to Maine, but Hurley said those are for storms that could lay down a light glaze of ice in many areas and not for the storm later in the week.

Earlier this week, a powerful storm cut across the Mid-Atlantic, knocking out power to nearly 1 million homes and businesses, blanketing Washington with snow, and trapping hundreds of motorists, including Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, on Interstate 95 for hours. Across Virginia, more than 183,000 customers were still without power Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us.

The official National Weather Service forecast calls for 2 to 4 inches in Washington and New York overnight Thursday to mid-day Friday. The Appalachian Mountains west of Washington and along Maine's northern coast is where the highest potential exists for the heaviest snow, said Hurley.

So far, New York's Central Park has received 0.2 inches of snow this season, which is 6.1 inches below normal, while Boston has only had 0.4 inches, according to the National Weather Service.