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Quick-Hitting Snow To Cause Travel Disruptions, Slippery Commute

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- It's been a pretty snow-starved winter thus far, with only .3" of snow recorded this season. But it's still early, and we may have our first decent shot at some accumulating snow arriving late this week!

It's a weak and fast-moving system, but it will tap into enough cold and moisture to produce snow starting late Thursday night and continuing into early Friday morning.

One important note is that this system has sped up a bit - we may now begin seeing snow in the city as early as 9:00 p.m., Thursday, when originally this looked like an overnight/morning system.

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The good news about a faster timeline?

The quicker it gets in, the quicker it departs, and it's now looking as though the snow may wind down as early as 4-5:00 a.m., on Friday. While this still means a dicey Friday morning commute, drivers won't be dealing with falling snow and low visibility, but will have to be concerned with slippery spots on the roads and will need to leave extra time to brush off the windshield.

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I'm expecting a general coating to 2" across the region by the time we wake up Friday morning. The snow will be light to moderate for the duration of the system, and some spots may see light snow throughout while others see near the top end of that range. But the system will pretty quickly move out, so we shouldn't expect much more than a nuisance accumulation from it.

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MORE SNOW

Saturday is a close call for the coast as a storm will cut by to our south, bringing the chance for heavy accumulating snow to parts of the southeast. It will then move offshore, and there's a chance the back edge of the precipitation could brush the coastline with some light snow, but overall right now it looks to be a miss for most of us, and in the city the weekend is almost certainly dry - at best, a few clouds or flurries if the storm should back further to the west. But it will be COLD - temps will fall below freezing Friday evening and will not go above freezing again until Tuesday morning.

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