PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Meteorologists in Philadelphia forecast potentially record-breaking cold weather for parts of Christmas weekend, the aftereffect of what experts predict will be a bomb cyclone storm.
It is also expected to cause major travel delays, the fear of which led holiday travelers in Philadelphia to move up their departures and avoid the storm. It also led the School District of Philadelphia to have students learn virtually and close district buildings on Friday.
“To put it simply, this is a monster and powerhouse storm, and I don’t say that lightly,” said NBC10 meteorologist Steve Sosna.
The storm system, with a dramatic drop in atmospheric pressure predicted, will impact more than 90 million people between the state of Washington, Texas, and New England, with blizzard conditions in the Midwest.
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Sosna said the Delaware Valley can expect several legs of the storm, beginning with rain and wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour on Thursday with possibilities of flash flooding, followed by record-breaking cold.
“We're going to get some heavy, windswept rain, but you still can travel around in it,” he said. “By Thursday night, our temperature pops up to near 60 degrees, but don't be deceived by that when you're walking out the door on Friday morning.”
While temperatures will be in the lower 50s at that time, they will plummet in a flash freeze in mere hours.
“It's those midday snow showers that are the gateway to the bitter, biting cold that will blast through the area,” said Sosna.
“We're talking about wind chills that will drop into the single digits. What I'm concerned about, with 1 to 3 inches of rain [turning] into a solid sheet of ice, you’ve got to be really careful after about 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. on Friday as the temperature dips down to 18 degrees."
He forecasts temperatures that night to fall to about 12 degrees, with wind chills of -5 to -10 degrees.
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“It goes right on into Christmas Eve day itself, where at the warmest point of the day, we're feeling like about 7 or 8 degrees with the actual temperature right around 22 degrees,” said Sosna. “That would make it the coldest Christmas in over three decades since 1989.”
He predicts Christmas Day temperatures to also be in the 20s, with wind chills in the teens.
Sosna says it’s important to confirm that home heating systems work, and to check in on neighbors.
Philly airport travelers try to beat major winter storm
The expected winter storm is causing holiday travelers to alter their plans during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
Travelers at Philadelphia International Airport Wednesday were trying to get ahead of the storm.
“I was supposed to come in Friday morning, and as the forecast just got worse and worse, there was just no way I was going to get here if I didn’t leave today,” Marcia Brott of Minneapolis told KYW Newsradio.
“The security lines were crazy. The desk lines were crazy. The check-in lines were crazy. But I’m just really happy I got here.”
Terri Adams of Drexel Hill flew to Philadelphia a day late after weather delays in Spokane forced her to miss a connection.
“We just wanted to make sure we got out of Minneapolis on time because they were getting a storm,” she said.
“We tried to get the quickest flight we could get out of there, and that was a little difficult.”
“If we have more people coming in and flights were already crowded to begin with, then for the airlines, trying to rebook those people and accommodate them on other flights could be a challenge,” said Heather Redfern, a spokesperson for Philadelphia International Airport.
“It’s going to be heavy rain for us at first, so we really can’t get out there and pretreat roadways and runways because it’ll just get washed away.”
About 75,000 people are expected to fly into and out of Philadelphia International on Thursday and Friday, Redfern said.
“We advise passengers whenever they're flying to register for email or text alerts from their airlines, and download their apps because that's where that information is going to come from,” Redfern said.
Many airlines are issuing waivers so that travelers can change plans without paying extra fees.