The National Weather Service predicts up to an inch of rain will fall every hour on Wednesday during the most intense periods of precipitation, beginning in the afternoon and getting heavier at night.

“Rates of around an inch per hour for prolonged periods of time are possible with the setup,” forecasters said Tuesday. “Widespread minor flooding with areas of more significant flooding are expected as a result.”

The rain began Tuesday afternoon but is supposed to stop briefly overnight. However, forecasters warned “a second low will approach on Wednesday and pass to the southeast on Thursday, bringing more significant rainfall of 1-2 inches, with locally higher amounts possible across Long Island and southeast Connecticut,” the weather service said.

“We may manage one dry day this week on Friday before a third storm arrives this weekend and brings yet more rain,” it added.

The flood watch is set to begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday and end at 6 a.m. Thursday. Temperatures are expected to remain rather consistent, with afternoon highs in the mid-50s and overnight lows in the low-40s.

The rain and low-50s temperatures will mark a sharp contrast from last weekend, when New Yorkers enjoyed record highs and sunny skies on Sunday.

But as we move into the first half of next week, NWS forecasters all but promise “the weather pattern looks quieter.”

A blizzard warning remains in effect for much of the Sierra Nevada until 10 a.m. local time on Sunday, with as much as 10 feet of snow possible in the mountains around Lake Tahoe, the National Weather Service Office in Reno, Nev. said.

“A long duration of high-intensity snow and strong winds is expected, with periods of whiteout conditions and near-zero visibility,” the agency said in its Saturday morning update.

The blizzard warning covers a stretch of approximately 300 miles, from north of Lake Tahoe to south of Yosemite Park, with high winds increasing the risks of downed trees and power lines.

“The combination of snow and high winds is most intense in the Sierra Nevada, where heavy snow rates exceeding 3 inches per hour and winds gusting over 100 mph are causing significant blowing, drifting snow and whiteout conditions, making travel impossible through the area,” the NWS said.

Early on Saturday, nearly 40,000 customers reported power outages in California, according to PowerOutage.us.

Around 5 p.m. on Friday, the California Highway Patrol said in a statement shared on social media that a section of Interstate 80 would also be closed indefinitely due to the severe weather.

“AAANNNDD WE’RE CLOSED!!” the CHP posted on X. “I-80 westbound traffic is being turned at the Nevada State line and eastbound I-80 traffic is being turned around at Drum Forebay due to spin outs, high winds, and low visibility.”

The situation had not improved Saturday morning.

“No estimated time of reopening the freeway,” CHP said in a 5:30 a.m. update.

Over a dozen ski resorts were forced to close down shop as “high to extreme avalanche danger” warnings were put in place for several areas around Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park.

“Due to wind, visibility, new snowfall, and 16-21 inches of snow in the forecast, all chairlifts at Palisades Tahoe will be closed for the day today, Saturday, March 2nd,” the famed ski resort posted on X around 6:30 a.m.

With News Wire Services

So if you don’t like Sunday’s cold weather — temperatures will be in the 20s on Sunday evening — all you have to do is wait.

Springlike conditions will start to kick in on Monday and Tuesday, when temperatures will hit the 50s. Some rain might fall on Tuesday afternoon.

The National Weather Service says there’s a 70% chance of precipitation on Tuesday evening, which will carry over into Wednesday with the higher temperatures.

Although Wednesday holds an expected high of 61 degrees, the temperature during the day could swing as low as 38 degrees.

“It would get colder behind that, and maybe behind that front there are a few snow flurries, like Wednesday night or Thursday,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Bob Larson.

The late-winter warmth won’t last. Temperatures are expected to fall back into the 40s on Thursday and Friday.

Clouds and light showers are then predicted for next weekend, but temperatures are supposed to climb again on Saturday and Sunday, with a high of 60 degrees on March 3, next Sunday.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday of next weekend all hold a 55% chance of rain, according to AccuWeather.

The first taste of spring in NYC comes almost a month after Groundhog Day on Feb.2, when Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow and erroneously predicted an early spring.

The precipitation began overnight Friday, coating Central Park with more than 2 inches of snow by 7 a.m., the National Weather Service said. It continued into Saturday morning, with a few flurries still falling into the early afternoon.

The bands of snow from there pushed away from the city and further east, along the south shore of Long Island, where residents faced threats of snow squalls early Saturday evening.

According to the NWS, snow squalls are “quick intense bursts of snow accompanied by strong gusty winds.” While squalls are short-lived, they come on quick, meaning that conditions can deteriorate rapidly.

Ahead of the weekend snowfall, the NWS issued a winter weather advisory for all of New England, New Jersey, South Westchester, and Long Island an well as New York City. It urged residents to use caution while driving and to keep an eye out for slippery sidewalks before the notice expired around 10 a.m.

“A huge THANK YOU to everyone who heeded the Travel Advisory and kept our city safe, and to the crews who worked tirelessly through the night and this morning,” the NYC Emergency Management said in a post to X.

Temperatures hovered in the low-to-mid 30s throughout the day on Saturday, before plummeting overnight and freezing over the snow-slicked sidewalks.

Temperatures with wind chills in the upper teens were forecast for Sunday morning, but things are slated to warm up slightly as the week progresses.

Snow from Tuesday’s nor’easter didn’t even have a chance to fully melt before the latest round of winter weather.

The storm earlier in the week, which came after a weekend of balmy, spring-like weather, hit the Big Apple with nearly four inches of snow.

The snowfall in the city on Saturday was part of a bigger storm sweeping across the East Coast, which tracked a bit more south than the one that struck earlier in the week.

The fast-moving weather event dumped a ton of snow on Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, where a winter storm warning was issued late Friday through Saturday morning, according to the NWS. In parts of Maryland and West Virginia, up to 10 inches of snow were in the forecast, with snowfall rates of up to two inches per hour at times, the agency said.

In Philadelphia, residents could see as much as six inches of snow, while D.C. was slated to get between two and five inches.

Parts of New Jersey were walloped by winter weather, with as much as a foot of snow blanketing central parts of the Garden State.

The NWS warned of snow-covered roads and visibility as low as 1/2 to 1 mile, emphasizing the conditions could be dangerous for those traveling.

With an estimated 8 inches of snow expected to fall in the New York City area, Democrat Suozzi and his opponent Pilip, who’s running on the Republican line, are hoping to make sure their supporters brave the bad weather to vote in person on Election Day. The race has been characterized as having serious implications for Congress and a preview of what will drive voters to the polls in November.

“We have very good early return results in the early voting and the absentee ballots, and it looks like the weather gets better later in the day,” Suozzi told reporters at a campaign stop at a bakery in Glen Cove.

Despite the predicted worst snowstorm in two years, Republicans may benefit from the vaunted Nassau County Republican Party organization, which has been known to drive higher turnout among its loyal supporters for years in good weather and bad.

“Nassau Republicans are energized and eager to support Mazi in this special election,” said Brian Devine, a spokesman for Pilip. “We are confident that regardless of the forecasted weather, our people will flock to the polls and send Mazi to Washington, D.C.”

Neither campaign shared details about their get out the vote plans, but insisted they would be ready. Nassau Republicans in particularly have mounted an aggressive door-to-door campaign to encourage votes for Pilip, while Suozzi has leaned heavily on volunteers from local unions.

Suozzi and the Democrats have enjoyed a major advantage in TV ad spending but it remains to be seen if that translates into voters battling the snow to cast ballots for him.

Election officials say polls will be open as usual from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the 3rd Congressional District that spans the North Shore and a slice of northeast Queens.

Forecasters say the snow will start overnight and already be falling in earnest by dawn Tuesday when voting gets underway and will continue through the afternoon before the storm moves away later in the day.

Some analysts say the storm could give Suozzi an edge because more Democrats than Republicans banked their votes by already voting by mail or casting ballots during the nine days of in-person early voting.

Republicans, on the other hand, typically prefer to vote in person on Election Day, especially since the 2020 presidential election when former President Trump decried mail-in voting as a liberal scam and blamed his loss to President Biden in part on Democrats voting by mail during the COVID pandemic.

The snowstorm could weaken the Republican edge on Election Day if people are too busy trying to cope with shoveling their homes and cars out to go to the polls.

Public schools will be closed in New York City, potentially making it more difficult for parents to vote.

Estimates say Democrats had a 11% edge over Republicans among the nearly 50,000 voters who cast votes during the nine days of early voting, compared with a 7.8% edge in the 2020 race that Santos won in an upset.

Team Blue has a 29% edge among the 12,694 votes cast by absentee ballot, also slightly better than in 2022.

GOP-friendly analysts warn those figures don’t necessarily mean voters backed Suozzi. They also point out that Santos won by 7.5% despite not-dissimilar early vote numbers.

Independents make up nearly 30% of voters in the district, meaning they will likely determine the winner of Tuesday’s vote.

Temperatures in the Big Apple hit the high 50s Saturday, and even low 60s in some spots, tying the all-time high for the day, according to AccuWeather. The previous record, set just last year in Central Park, was 61 degrees.

Forecasters noted that many cities along the East Coast corridor were expected to record toasty temps over the weekend, but they’re also in store for a little bit of weather whiplash.

Cooler air, fueled by a storm forming in the South, will start making its way up the East Coast on Sunday, though meteorologists still expect the temperatures to remain fairly mild.

However, more cold air from Canada will force temperatures below freezing at the start of the week, making some heavy snowfall a real possibility. While the precipitation, set to strike the East Coast on Monday night, will most likely start out as rain in the city, it’s expected to transform into a slushy snow overnight and into Tuesday.

While the storm track could still shift in the coming days, the National Weather Service warned Saturday the “potential is increasing for an accumulating snowfall to occur in at least parts of the tristate Monday night.” Based on current forecast trends, the storm is likely to dump moderate to heavy snow from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts.

The Big Apple and the surrounding region could see up to a couple inches of snow — a notable and wintry change for the city. So far, New York has recorded just 2.3 inches of snow this season, matching the total hit in 2023, the least snowy year the city has experienced in a long time.

Last month, New York City broke a 700-day-long snow drought when a storm dropped a little over an inch in the city.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which “effectively transports heat and salt through the global ocean,” has recently shown signs of trending toward a crucial “tipping point” according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

Scientists have been warning of the potential collapse for decades, as the currents’ strength has been weakened by rising temperatures which affect the system’s balance of heat and salt.

While the study offers no timetable for when a collapse could occur — the AMOC has only been closely observed since 2004 — it predicts devastating effects in particular for Euorpe and the Amazon rainforest.

If the AMOC collapses, some regions of Europe could see average temperatures decrease by 30 degrees Celsius over a century, according to the study.

While a century seems like a long time, scientists say the possible changes would be significantly felt over the course of just decades. For example, February temperatures in Norway could drop by 3.5 degrees Celsius per decade.

“No realistic adaptation measures can deal with such rapid temperature changes,” the study authors write.

Similarly in the Amazon, scientists notice a “drastic change in their precipitation patterns” from their model, showing “the dry season becomes the wet season and vice versa.”

These changes, the authors argue, could “severely disrupt the ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest.”

In 2021, the AMOC was determined to be at its weakest point in the last 1,000 years, according to a separate study published by Nature Geoscience.

If the system were to collapse, it “would affect every person on the planet – it’s that big and important,” Peter de Menocal, the president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, told CNN.