Winter Weather Advisory: Light snow, ice for NJ on Monday

As a storm system slides through New Jersey, we will see some wintry mix and slippery roads for President's Day before changing over to rain later.

Timing

As expected, the first snowflakes began flying in New Jersey early Monday morning and will continue spreading northward. While the snow will reduce visibility and make roads slick, accumulations are not expected to be that heavy in New Jersey. (Travel north or west, and it will be a different story.) By Monday evening, the storm system will actually transport some much warmer air from the south, causing a changeover from snow to wintry mix to rain. Throughout the day on Tuesday, anything that falls from the sky will be rain, thanks to high temperatures in the 50s.

Biggest Concern

I continue to be most concerned about that narrow window of mixing this afternoon and evening - specifically the possibility of a period of sleet and freezing rain. That could make for some incredibly slippery conditions, as it only takes a light glaze of ice to cause big problems. The timing of this icing would unfortunately coincide with the evening commute. (Fortunately, lots of New Jerseyans won't be commuting today due to the President's Day holiday.) The ice seems most likely in the busiest part of the state, between the I-195 to I-80 corridors. We'll all need to exercise extra caution when walking or driving during this time, as icing can occur instantly and could be very dangerous.

Snow Totals

The top snow accumulations will occur in the northwest corner of New Jersey, likely around 3 or 4 inches around Sussex County. Totals will taper off toward the south and east, with just a coating to an inch of snow expected along the Jersey Shore.

Winter Weather Advisory

The National Weather Service has attempted to capture the fine detail of the timing and impacts of this storm, by issuing seven separate Winter Weather Advisories for different county groups, with different start/end times, and different snow/ice accumulations. I generally believe this strategy lends to more confusion and inaccuracy than helpful information (especially due to intraoffice forecast differences). But, for the sake of completeness, here's the rundown of all the advisories for New Jersey:

5:36 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday: Cumberland, Atlantic, Cape May, Southeastern Burlington
--1 to 2 inches of snow

5:36 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday: Western Monmouth, Salem, Gloucester, Camden, Northwestern Burlington, Ocean
--1 to 2 inches of snow and sleet
--Light glaze of ice

6 a.m. Monday to 10 p.m. Monday: Middlesex, Mercer
--1 to 2 inches of snow and sleet
--Light glaze of ice

10 a.m. Monday to 1 a.m. Tuesday: Warren, Morris, Hunterdon, Somerset
--2 to 3 inches of snow and sleet
--Tenth of an inch of ice

1 p.m. Monday to Midnight Tuesday: Western Bergen
--2 to 4 inches of snow
--Glaze of ice

1 p.m. Monday to Midnight Tuesday: Eastern Passaic, Eastern Bergen
--Up to 1 inch of snow
--Glaze of ice

1 p.m. Monday to Midnight Tuesday: Hudson, Essex, Union
--Up to 1" of snow
--Light glaze of ice

1 p.m. Monday to 4 a.m. Tuesday: Sussex
--2 to 4 inches of snow and sleet
--Tenth of an inch of ice

1 p.m. Monday to 7 a.m. Tuesday: Western Passaic
--2 to 4 inches of snow
--Few hundredths of an inch of ice

Rain

By the early morning hours on Tuesday, all wintry precipitation across the Garden State should have transitioned to rain. And that's the way it will stay all day on Tuesday. As the core of this storm system passes overhead, we may see some pockets of moderate to heavy rain, totaling an inch of two across the state. This will present a flooding risk for any areas with significant snowpack and/or storm drains that are blocked with ice.

What's Next?

The next weather-maker we'll be watching carefully will be a clipper system in the Friday night to Saturday time frame. It doesn't look like a big deal at this point, but we'll continue to monitor and update you here on the web and on the radio as well.

Dan Zarrow is the Chief Meteorologist for Townsquare Media New Jersey. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter for the latest forecast and realtime weather updates.