Winter Storm Warnings are in effect for all of Delaware as it braces for its first winter blast of the new year.
The National Weather Service (NWS) upped its snow totals to eight to 12 inches for Central Delaware. New Castle and Sussex Counties are forecast to see 3 to 6 inches.
And Meteorologist Jonathan O’Brian says the big question everyone is asking is - how did this storm pop up?
He notes it’s definitely a big change from the recent weather.
“Much of Delaware was in the 50’s and 60’s for the past couple of days, obviously feeling nothing like winter," O'Brian said. "However we did have a cold front move through last evening, if you were still up you may have felt the temperature change as it came through. And the temperatures now have already fallen into the 30’s across the State of Delaware and will remain in the low to mid-30’s through the day today.”
O’Brian says the low temperatures combined with an area of low pressure to our southwest is going to cause a lot of precipitation across our area Monday.
O’Brian explains how it’s expected to play out, “For the far northern part of the State, it may actually start as just snow. For most of the State - kind of the Central portions - it should probably start to flip over to snow towards the sunrise hour. It may take a little longer across the far southern part of the State, getting towards the Delaware beaches. Down there the rain may hang on towards early this afternoon.”
O’Brian says because the ground is warm - snow may not accumulate as fast, but the rate of snowfall could be very intense later this morning into the early afternoon, allowing the snow to pile up.
Motorists are advised to slow down and adjust to conditions, allow for extra time to reach destinations and give snowplows room to work.
DelDOT’s snowplow tracker is available via the DelDOT app and online. DelDOT also has more than 200 traffic cameras available to view road conditions around the state.
The snow should be gone by late afternoon or early evening.
