Winter Weather: Strong Winds Will Pummel Maryland On Sunday
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Strong winds are moving into the area after a day of heavy wet snow across most of the state.
Snow impacted areas including Baltimore County, Harford County, Carroll County, Frederick County and Washington County on Saturday.
Total snow accumulations for most of the state impacted by the winter storm were anywhere from two to four inches, with four to six inches in northern Baltimore County and Harford County.
Areas like New Market and Taneytown saw the most accumulations so far with about five inches of snow.
A wind advisory remains in effect until 1 p.m. Sunday with winds out the Northwest at 20–30 miles per hour and gusts up to 50 miles per hour.
Strong winds combined with the heavy snow could also bring down trees and branches with could lead to potential power outages.
Maryland State Highway officials say they will continue snow and ice operations into the evening including salting roadways in an effort to prevent re-freezing overnight.
Over at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, the winter weather team worked throughout the day to treat the airfield for safe airline operations, according to airport staff.
The team consisted of 140 people who worked around the clock to ensure that the runways, taxiways, roadways, and parking lots could be safely used by travelers, staff said.
The airport was experiencing hour-long departure delays early Saturday evening, according to data-tracking website FlightAware.
Aircraft arriving at the airport saw delays of around 48 minutes, according to FlightAware's data.
Those time frames were slowly decreasing around 5 p.m., per the data.
But four hours later, that downward projection changed.
Although the arrival delays shifted to only 35 minutes, the departure delays increased to a 90-minute wait by 9:25 p.m., according to FlightAware.
In preparation for dangerous winds, the Maryland Transportation Authority issued a wind warning for the Francis Scott Key Bridge around 11 p.m. on Saturday.
The state agency issues wind warnings when wind speeds are sustained between 30-39 miles per hour for 10 minutes or more or if wind gusts persistently exceed 30 miles per hour for for 15 minutes or more.
At that time, people who have house trailers, box trailers, motorcycles, vehicles with roof-mount racks containing cargo or any other vehicle that might be impacted by high winds are asked to use caution while traveling across the bridge, according to the state agency.
