Winter Storm Forecast: Parts of the Northeast Could Get a Foot of Snow

A winter storm is expected to move through the Northeast starting on Monday and lasting into Tuesday, bringing up to a foot of snow in some areas stretching from central Pennsylvania to the Catskills and Hudson Valley in New York, forecasters said.

As of Saturday, the storm was over the Southern Plains in the southwestern United States, but over the next couple of days it will work its way east and then northeast.

The heaviest snow is expected from northern Pennsylvania, far northwestern New Jersey and southern New York into interior southern New England, where locally a foot or more of snow could fall, said Bill Deger, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.

In these areas, snowfall rates could exceed an inch an hour for a time, he said.

The heaviest snowfalls will most likely be north of New York City, said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center.

Forecasts on Saturday called for up to a foot of snow from central Pennsylvania through the Catskills and Hudson Valley in New York and then across portions of southern New England, Connecticut and Massachusetts and through the metropolitan Boston area.

The precipitation is expected to start as rain on Monday night in New York City and then turn to snow late on Tuesday morning, said David Stark, a meteorologist for the Weather Service office in New York. He said he did not expect high snow totals but added that it was too early to tell.

The rain-to-snow mix can be dangerous for drivers, Mr. Deger said.

“Rain falling before snow makes it very difficult for municipalities to prepare roads for the wintry weather,” he noted, “as any pretreatment can be washed away before temperatures fall below freezing and snow starts to accumulate.”

Drivers should anticipate a difficult commute on Tuesday in eastern Pennsylvania through the New York City area and into the Hudson Valley and southern New England, where visibility could be reduced by locally heavy snow, Mr. Deger said.

During the high tide on Tuesday in the early afternoon, “there might be pockets of minor, maybe even moderate, coastal flooding along the East Coast,” said Rob Megnia, a meteorologist for the Weather Service office in Boston. “People should be aware of that even if they’re not expecting a lot of snow.”

Mr. Pereira of the Weather Prediction Center said the storm would be “fairly fast-moving.”

“As we get into Tuesday evening into the overnight, the system is going to be out into the open Atlantic waters,” he said, adding that the storm should be over by Wednesday morning.