Impending “Snow and Sleet Sandwich” Leads to Early Dismissals, Cancellations

Did you hear? Of course you’ve heard: More ice and snow is on its way.

The Philadelphia area is actually taking a one-two-three hit from winter weather over the next few days. Phillywx is calling it a “Snow and Sleet Sandwich Storm.” Precipitation started across Pennsylvania earlier on Tuesday, and it is expected to roll into the Philadelphia area in an hour or so.

Your commute home is going to be messy: Per multiple forecasts, snow will be brief. It is expected to change over to sleet right at rush hour and move to freezing rain later in the evening. Temperatures are expected to rise above freezing sometime after 9; Phillywx says “road conditions should gradually improve through the night in the Philadelphia metro.”

Here's a wider map view of expected icing due to freezing rain later today. Again, there is no safe amount of icing. pic.twitter.com/ES6UAUGJNl

— Gary Szatkowski (@GarySzatkowski) March 3, 2015

What does this mean for you? Some schools in the western suburbs have already ordered early dismissals or canceled or postponed evening events. Many events, school-related or not, scheduled for tonight are likely to be canceled or postponed.

As for later in the week, most models have around six inches of snow hitting Philadelphia starting very late on Wednesday evening. In a worst-case scenario, we could get double-digit inches of snow. The Thursday morning commute is likely to be a messy one, too, with the snow changing over to sleet.

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