HEBRON, Conn. (AP) — A classic nor'easter was chugging along up the East Coast and expected to dump anywhere from a dusting of snow to about 10 inches throughout the region starting Saturday, a decidedly unseasonal date for a type of storm more associated with midwinter.
A mix of rain and snow was falling in the mid-Atlantic, with more snow farther inland. Cherry Grove, W.Va., on the edge of theMonongahela National Forest, got 4 inches of snow overnight, according to the National Weather Service.
Communities inland are expected to get hit hardest by the storm. The heaviest snow was forecast for the Massachusetts Berkshires, the Litchfield Hills in northwestern Connecticut, southwestern New Hampshire and the southern Green Mountains.
The heavy, wet snow combined with fully leafed trees could lead to downed tree branches and power lines, resulting in numerous power outages, officials said.
Relatively warm water temperatures along the Atlantic seaboard could keep the snowfall totals much lower along the coast and in cities such as Boston, National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson said, with 1 to 3 inches of snowfall forecast along the I-95 corridor.
October snowfall records could be broken in parts of southern New England, especially at higher elevations, National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson said. The October record for southern New England is 7.5 inches in Worcester in 1979.
More than 6 inches of snow could accumulate in parts of Maine on Saturday. Parts of southern Vermont could receive more than a foot of wet snow Saturday into Sunday.
In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned residents that they could lose power due to the anticipated wet, heavy snow.
Dan Patrylak recently moved from Arizona back to New England and was looking forward to seeing snow on the ground again, happily picking up two new ice scrapers in Connecticut at the start of his weekend.
"In Phoenix, it's 113 all summer long," the 79-year-old Patrylak, of Glastonbury, said Friday. "So, it just depends on where you are and what the weather is and you learn to accept that. Whatever it is, I'm going to be ready for it."
In Pennsylvania, snow was falling in Allentown and Reading in the eastern part of the state. Philadelphia has seen mostly rain with a few drifting flakes, but that is expected to turn to snow as temperatures fall, the weather service said.
Philadelphia was expected to get 1 to 3 inches, its first measurable October snow since 1979 — with 2 to 4 inches in some suburbs, meteorologist Mitchell Gaines said.
Allentown is expected to see 4 to 8 inches, likely to break the city's October record of 2.2 inches on Halloween in 1925.
"This is very, very unusual," said John LaCorte, a National Weather Service meteorologist in State College, Pa., where heavy snow was falling Saturday morning.
LaCorte said the last major widespread snowstorm to hit Pennsylvania this early was in 1972.
"It's going to be very dangerous," he added.
Rain and snow are expected to fall most of the day Saturday in New York City, with just snow falling overnight. Forecasters predict 2 to 4 inches will accumulate.
October snowfall is rare in New York; there have been just three October days with measurable snowfall in Central Park in the last 135 years when record-keeping began, according to the National Weather Service. The largest on record was in 1925 when eight-tenths of an inch fell in Central Park.
In New England, the first measurable snow usually falls in early December, and normal highs for late October are in the mid-50s.
"This is just wrong," said Dee Lund of East Hampton, who was at a Glastonbury garage Friday getting four new tires for her car before a weekend road trip to New Hampshire.
Lund said that after last winter's record snowfall, which left a 12-foot snow bank outside her house, she'd been hoping for a reprieve.
But not everyone was lamenting the unofficial arrival of winter.
Two Vermont ski resorts, Killington and Mount Snow, planned to start the ski season early by opening one trail each over the weekend, thanks to the recent snow and cold.
In Hebron, Steve Hoffman had expected to sell a lot of fall fertilizer this weekend at his hardware store in Hebron. Instead, he spent Friday moving bags of ice melting pellets.
"We're stocked up and we've already sold a few shovels," Hoffman said. "We actually had one guy come in and buy a roof rake."
Simpson cautioned that the early snowfall is not an indication of what the winter might bring.
"This doesn't mean our winter is going to be terrible," he said. "You can't get any correlation from a two-day event."
Temperatures should return to the mid-50s by midweek.
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