The Saucon Valley is still digging out from the Great Blizzard of 2016–which dumped about 30 inches of snow on the Saucon Valley and paralyzed much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast over the weekend. But it’s possible there will be no rest for the weary, because there will be more snow to deal with before long, according to several popular Facebook weather forecasters.
Snow plows were put the test by the massive blizzard. Road crews have been working around the clock to clear the roads in Saucon Valley.
Eastern PA Weather Authority broke the news of the possible late week storm in a post to the 237,000 followers of its Facebook page Sunday afternoon.
“The European model (with exceptionally strong ensemble support) is suggesting that Thursday night/Friday we may get more (snow),” the post said. “(It’s) not a lock yet, as the GFS and Canadian models disagree on their current runs–but (they) are close enough to be concerned.”
The meteorologists at EPAWA poined out that “this same thing happened in 1996. The great blizzard hit on Jan 6-7, and five days later another storm hit.”
The storm that struck on Jan. 12, 1996–in the wake of a storm that deposited 26 inches–dropped up to eight more inches of snow on parts of the Lehigh Valley. Far more than that in central and northeastern Pennsylvania, where upwards of 18 inches buried already snowbound areas.
In light of the possibility that more snow will fall on densely-populated areas already struggling to find a place to put what fell Friday and Saturday, “Uncle Chris” from the page East Coast Weather Watch had a warning of sorts for local officials in charge of snow removal efforts in a Facebook post late Sunday.
“I would strongly encourage you to reach out to your municipal officials and have them take as much snow as they can from their streets and roads…and park it in some field out of the way,” he wrote to the page’s 56,000 followers. “Why am I making this recommendation? Because there is another POTENTIALLY significant snow event in the Friday-ish timeframe. No joke. So if your municipality (or even city) listens to its constituents, that gives them four days to move all that snow. Trust me, if they don’t streets and roads are just plain gonna SUCK.”
The page Pennsylvania Weather Action–which was one of the first of the Facebook weather outlets to push the idea that the weekend storm would be stronger than anticipated in the Lehigh Valley–said “we are already keeping an eye on late next week,” but did not divulge details Sunday.
Sunday night’s low temperature was forecast to be just 5 degrees at Allentown, with heavy snowpack a factor in producing that number, PWA said.
The National Weather Service has so far said nothing about the possibility of a late week storm, but it did issue a special weather statement Sunday evening in which it warned about the possibility of black ice overnight and Monday morning.
“Some of the snow and ice on and near paved surfaces melted (Sunday) afternoon and refroze… As a result, there are icy patches on roads, walkways and parking lots,” the statement said. “If you will be going out overnight or on Monday morning, use extra caution. The icy patches will be especially difficult to see at night.”
What do you think about the possibility of another snowstorm? Are you more likely to say “Bring it on!” or “Say it ain’t snow!?”
