Synopsis: A cold frontal boundary moved southeast from the Ohio Valley and Southern Plains into the region during the night of Wednesday March 4th 2015. This cold front moved through the area during the early morning of March 5th. Several waves of low pressure tracked northeast along the front. An arctic airmass advected in behind the front leading to record lows on the mornings of March 6th and 7th.

 

A winter storm watch was issued for the entire region at 3:04 pm on March 3rd. This was upgraded to a warning for all but Carbon, Monroe, Lehigh, Northampton PA and Sussex, Warren and Morris Counties in NJ which remained under a watch. These same counties were placed under an Advisory at 3:42 pm Wednesday March 4th. At 10:22 am March 5th Warren, Morris, Lehigh and Northampton counties were upgraded to warnings. The warnings and advisories ended by 7 pm March 5th for most of the region and by 9 pm in Sussex DE.

 

Rain developed across most of the region the night of March 4th. This slowly changed to snow from north to south by sunrise throughout most of PA and nj. It took till noon on Thursday March 5th for the changeover to occur in Sussex DE. A little sleet mixed in during the changeover with light accumulations in Sussex DE. Temperatures in the 40’s Wednesday afternoon fell into the 30’s Wednesday night and into the 10’s and 20’s Thursday night. Steady snow continued and pressed south gradually on Thursday. The mesoscale environment was favorable for banding features with the snow and several moderate to heavy bands of snow developed with rates of 1-2 inches per hour for short time intervals. The snow ended by Thursday evening. Storm total snow ranged from 2-5 inches across the Poconos and Northern New Jersey. Outside of the Poconos between 5 and 9 inches of snow fell with locally higher totals.

 

Rain on Wednesday night made it impossible for road crews to pre-treat the roads. With tumbling temperatures and steady snow road conditions quickly got worse throughout the day Thursday. Many schools were closed both Thursday and Friday. Record cold did not allow for rapid improvement of side streets which were plowed but not treated. Wind chills fell to around zero Friday morning. Parts of the Pennsylvania turnpike were closed during the heaviest snows. No weather related injuries or deaths have been reported at the time of this report.

 

Information contained in this summary is preliminary. More complete and/or detailed information may be contained in subsequent monthly NOAA storm data publications.