Forecasters say as much as 5 inches of snow, possibly more, could fall on southeastern sections of New Jersey late Friday into Saturday.
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for Atlantic and Cape May counties, saying there's a potential for 5 inches or more of snow from a large weather system that's expected to hit the nation's mid-Atlantic region this weekend.
UPDATE: The winter storm warning has been expanded to include all of Ocean County and the southeastern portion of Burlington County. The warning is effective from 1 a.m. Saturday through 6 p.m. Saturday.
Snow is expected to overspread the far southeastern region of New Jersey either late Friday night or Saturday morning, depending on the speed of the storm system, according to the National Weather Service's regional forecast office in Mount Holly. Snow could become heavy at times on Saturday before tapering off around sunset.
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Lance Franck, a meteorologist at the weather service, said forecasters are still uncertain about the track of the storm, but at this time, it appears it will move close enough to the southern New Jersey coast to drop measurable snow on parts of Atlantic and Cape May counties.
The weekend storm is currently not expected to bring any substantial snow to areas further north or west, but some light snow could fall in areas farther west toward the I-95/New Jersey Turnpike corridor, the weather service said in an afternoon briefing.
Most of New Jersey will be getting some measurable snow from a different storm system late Thursday night into early Friday morning. While most of North Jersey is forecast to get 1 to 2 inches from this storm, many interior sections of the state could get 2 to 3 inches, eastern Monmouth and Ocean could get 3 to 4 inches, and South Jersey could get 1 to 3 inches.
Snow from the first storm system is expected to start between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Thursday and wind down between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Friday.
Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @LensReality or like him on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.