N.Y. weather: When is next chance for snow in NYC? Forecasters monitoring possible storm for weekend

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — It may not be long before New York City residents need to put the snow shovels back to work.

“A large storm is still expected to develop across the southern U.S. as we head into Friday and Saturday and the big question is, ‘how far north does this storm go?’” Matt Benz, an AccuWeather senior meteorologist, told the Advance/SILive.com.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Benz believes New York City could potentially see snow from Saturday night through Sunday; the snow could even continue falling into Sunday night.

“Now we’re kind of at the northern edge of this storm at this point, so any different path it may take could obviously have a big impact on what we see locally, but at least at this point there’s a potential for snow, potential accumulations depending on the track of the storm,” added Benz.

While Benz said it was too early to give any accumulation estimates, he explained that plowable snow could fall, particularly in the southern part of the city.

Unlike other snowfall events this season in which snow rapidly melted in the days that followed, Benz said any snow that does come down with this weekend’s system will linger for days on end due to the frigid cold.

“When it gets cold like that, it’s harder to remove it [the snow],” he added. “So even if you’re throwing down salt on the streets and sidewalks it may not be as effective because of the cold air.”

Temperatures are forecast to reach the upper teens to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday and Sunday, Benz explained. These temperatures could reach the mid-20s on Monday, but are expected to remain below-freezing for some time.

According to Benz, it could be “several days” when temperatures are either at or below freezing in the New York City area.

This “cold snap” began with an injection of cold air, however, the flow of the jet stream continues to trap that cold air in the Northeast.

“So you’re seeing a large Arctic area of high pressure basically dominating the weather pattern across much of the Great Lakes and into the Northeast,” said Benz.