Up to 9 inches of snow fell in the Philly region on Tuesday, but a lot of places didn’t get much

Mira Brickman, 9, (right), and Lilly Brickman, 9, (left), are out making a snowman at Clark Park on Tuesday. It hasn’t been the best of times for snowmen.

Parts of the Philadelphia region have just experienced what was by far their biggest snowfall of the winter of 2023-24, even if the vast majority of people living in the city and areas to the south and east might find that rather unimaginable.

Some towns in Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery Counties weighed in with 7 to 9 inches on Tuesday, and others with 3 to 6 inches of ultra-heavy, picturesque snow that pasted itself onto trees. A whole bunch of that white mass came in a hurry during what ordinarily would be the peak morning commuting hours.

“It wasn’t a huge powerhouse of a storm,” said Dave Dombek, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. “It’s doing it’s thing, and it’s getting out of here.”

Dozens of flights in and out of Philadelphia International Airport — where officially 0.6 inches landed — were delayed or canceled, but the airport has had worse days. PennDot imposed speed restrictions on major highways, and no major issues were reported. Power outages were scattered, with Peco reporting only about 5,500.

It was a snow day, of sorts, in the Philly region

By early afternoon, the snow-weighted trees were casting shadows, and the snow packs were quickly pancaking.

What the storm may have lacked in ferocity, it made up for in aesthetics — and caprice, with wildly varying snow totals throughout the region, after playing an aggressive game of dodge ball with meteorologists who had tried to get a handle on their accumulation forecasts.

The National Weather Service adjusted its forecasts a couple of times Monday night, eventually deciding to trim estimates to the north and increase them to the south. As it turned out, however, the heftiest amounts fell in the Poconos, where more than a foot was reported, and the Lehigh Valley.

How much snow fell around Philadelphia? Totals from across the region.

What went right and wrong with the snow forecast

The accumulations — and the estimates that went awry — were the result of a number of factors.

• The dynamics of the storm. It was what meteorologists call a “Miller B,” named for the researcher who identified it. It approached from the Mississippi Valley, and then transferred its energy to a storm developing off the Mid-Atlantic coast. On Monday forecasters were worried that getting a handle on just how deeply it would intensify, and precisely where it would throw back its moisture, would be problematic. They were right about that.
• Banding. As so often happens, narrow bands of heavy snow set up over certain areas, and when that happens, areas on either side of the band are snow-deprived. That was happending Tuesday morning, said Dombek.
• Temperatures. Temperatures reached 50 degrees for a fifth-straight day Monday, and in most places they never got below freezing during the snowfall. Accumulations were dependent on snowfall rates, and even though it kept snowing through the morning, not much of it was able to stick in parts of Philly and areas to the south and east. Elevation evidently was a key to how much accumulated: Temperatures decrease with height.

What’s next

Not much, at least in the way of snow.

Temperatures early Wednesday are due to fall into the mid-20s, which will freeze whatever the February sun can’t get to during the afternoon.

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Don’t expect any more accumulating snow in the short-term, said Dombek.

Temperatures on Wednesday won’t be getting out of the 30s, reaching the low 40s Thursday and Friday before a weekend cool-down. “It’s cold, not anything Arctic,” said Dombek, “but it will feel like winter.”

That would be something a little bit different in a season that has a shot at making the top-10 warmest winter list in more than 150 years of record-keeping in Philly.

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