Having just dug out from the previous storm, area residents woke Friday morning to find 3 to 4 more inches of snow ahead of their morning commute Jan. 7.
Hardware stores were doing a brisk business for snow shovels and salt.
Area schools closed for the third day of the week and some businesses opened late to allow time for the roads to be cleared.
The National Weather Service in Mount Holly called it a quick-hitting nor’easter that brought disruptive snowfall.
“Total wise, you’re approaching seasonal normal with two systems in five days,” meteorologist Brian Haines said. “That’s unusual to get that much that quick.”
According to a map on its website, weather.gov/phi, Ocean City received 3.3 inches Friday on top of the 14 inches that fell across the island earlier in the week. Marmora had 9 inches Monday and another 4 inches was recorded Friday in Woodbine. Somers Point got 3.2 inches in addition to its previous 11 and Northfield got 5.6 to add to 12.4 earlier in the week.
Atlantic City International Airport (ACY) in Egg Harbor Township got 4.2 inches Friday. The airport closed for part of the day Jan. 3 after more than 13 inches of snow fell.
Haines said it’s unusual for coastal southern New Jersey to see snow fall on top of snow, since it rarely stays cold enough long enough or storms are more spaced out.
“It’s more unusual for you than for us in Mount Holly,” he said, noting Monday’s storm “produced a lot of heavy snow, especially across the southern portions of the area, in Ocean City and down to Cape May.”
The snow was expected to stick around for a couple of days. Haines said the temperature would warm over the weekend, then fall dramatically Tuesday. Calling it the coldest day of the new year, highs were expected to be in the 20s and then begin to warm Wednesday, Jan. 12.
Using ACY as an example, Haines said the 17.2-inch total snowfall from the two storms is near the seasonal average.
“It’s unusual to get that much snow at once,” Haines said.
Brisk business in
salt, shovels
Hardware stores were doing a brisk business in shovels and rock salt.
Tyler Silverstein, a clerk at Wallace Hardware in downtown Ocean City, said they got 56 shovels in Wednesday and three pallets of rock salt and sold the last shovel Friday and were down to two bags of rock salt.
Likewise, Shandell Jackson, a clerk at Shore Hardware in Somers Point, said they had no shovels and no rock salt.
“We were supposed to get a delivery today but it was postponed because of weather,” she said, noting it was coming from Pennsylvania.
Also expecting a brisk business was area car washes.
Brian Coggins, owner of Car Caress with car wash locations in Marmora and Ocean City, said he expected a line.
“Typically, after a snowstorm, we get a hit and are busy for a couple of days, a week if it’s really nice out,” Coggins said, noting people want to get the salt off their vehicles.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff