New York and Northeast Set for Slippery Commute on Ice Thursday

New York City and the Northeast will slip into Thursday morning’s rush hour on a carpet of sleet, freezing rain and possible snow.

Winter weather advisories are up from Oklahoma to Massachusetts in advance of the fast-moving system that will give Chicago a coating of ice on streets, trees and powerlines Wednesday, the National Weather Service said. It will be the first of two small but icy systems that roll across the eastern U.S. through the weekend. New York may get about 1 to 2 inches of snow and sleet.

“It’s that dreaded winter mix,” said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center. “In New York it looks like it could start off as snow. It is not a prolonged event, but unfortunately it looks like it is coming through right at rush hour.”

Storms like this are potent enough to tie up road and rail traffic, delay and ground flights, and if enough ice builds up on trees and powerlines even cause short-lived outages. The system opens the door to a shift in the larger weather pattern that may bring more bursts of snow and ice across the eastern U.S.

A second wave will pass through New York and Chicago as well as the Northeast starting Saturday. Some computer forecast models are suggesting another storm later next week.

“It’s kind of an active period coming forward,” Oravec said. “We will see how everything shakes out.”