Nor'easter Could Bring First Snow of the Season to the Northeast

A nor'easter could spin up this week, hauling the season's first snow into central and eastern states from Thursday into the weekend. Frigid air and precipitation streaming down from the Northwest and Canada are setting the stage. Communities from the Northeast to New England face the brunt of it, though forecasters expect only minor disruptions to ground travel — and the whole forecast is still subject to change.

AccuWeather meteorologist Brandon Buckingham named Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, plus Syracuse and Binghamton, New York, as spots that could catch their first snowflakes of the season. The mountain terrain of the Poconos, Catskills and Berkshires carries the same risk. The interior Northeast down through the central Appalachians is the most likely snow zone, including higher elevations in Massachusetts, upstate New York and as far south as Pennsylvania, but nobody knows yet how much will fall. Outside those elevated areas, snow may struggle to accumulate at all.

Coastal cities should keep the umbrellas handy instead. The Atlantic Ocean waters are still very warm, according to Buckingham, so major metros along the shore are forecast to see rain ahead of the weekend. By Saturday, the storm is projected to pull away toward Canada, leaving lingering snow showers from rainy Maine through the Appalachian mountains, FOX Weather reports.

However the snow shakes out, the cold is the sure thing. Afternoon temperatures are forecast to hit around 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1 degrees Celsius) for more than 110 million people in the Northeast, with lows dropping into the 20s Fahrenheit (-6.6 degrees Celsius). That spells hard freezes for the Midwest, Ohio Valley and South, plus nights below freezing in Tennessee, Alabama and Atlanta.

There's a silver lining buried in the chill: the freeze marks the end of the growing season and brings relief to the roughly 80 million Americans who battle fall allergies. Ragweed is the worst offender, with a single plant releasing up to a billion grains of pollen, according to the Cleveland Clinic.