Latest snowfall forecast for Sunday: 4-8″ of snow expected for much of the area then bitter cold | Weather

It continues to look likely that much of the region, certainly north and west of I-95, will have a rather snowy Sunday.

We updated our snowfall forecast earlier this morning to much of the region north and west of I-95 seeing 4 to 8 inches of a powdery snow later Sunday morning into early Sunday night. That forecast continues to hold. Amounts will diminish along and southeast of the I-95 corridor and towards the shore, where a mix of sleet and rain will factor in. But for everyone else, this is all snow, and the biggest snow of the season so far.

WHAT’S CHANGED: The only thing that has changed with this forecast update is that the National Weather Service has upgraded the Winter Storm Watches to Winter Storm WARNINGS, and those along and south and east of I-95 are under Winter Weather Advisories. We also tweaked our projected snowfall map ever so slightly to show a tighter gradient in snow totals for I-95 and points south and east due to potential mixing of sleet and rain down there.

TIMING: Snow will develop by mid to late Sunday morning, with the steadiest and heaviest snow in the afternoon and early evening. Snow will then taper off before midnight, likely by late evening. Roughly, expect a 12-hour window of snow from 10am to 10pm.

TYPE: This will be an all-snow event for those north and west of I-95, and a powdery snow too with the increasingly cold temperatures. That snow will blow and drift around later Sunday night and Monday as the winds pick up and the bitter cold arrives.

TOTALS: 4-8″ of snow continues to be our forecast now, with fairly high confidence for a widespread moderate snowfall. Isolated 9″ or even 10″ amounts are possible where heavier banding sets up. The best odds for those isolated higher amounts may lie across the Poconos and far northwestern New Jersey. The snow will be powdery, so there will be a “fluff factor” where it will be fluffy and easily accumulate.

TEMPS: Temperatures will fall through the 20s as the snow falls Sunday afternoon and evening, and then into the teens overnight Sunday night. Winds will pick up later Sunday night into Monday and Tuesday, with north to northwest winds around 15-25mph and gusty, leading to wind chills as low as 10 to 20 below zero at times from Monday night through early Thursday morning. This will lead to bitter and dangerously cold wind chills.