Snow began falling in Philly early Sunday evening and is expected to continue through Monday afternoon, with the heaviest snowfall overnight into the morning. Here’s the latest map.
A citywide snow emergency is in effect in Philadelphia, while both New Jersey and Delaware have declared a state of emergency.
DoorDash, the food delivery service, has suspended operations in Philadelphia and New Jersey amid the snow storm.
According to a company press release, DoorDash deliveries have ended as of 9 p.m. on Sunday and will not begin again until at least 12 p.m. Monday, depending on conditions at that time.
“We’re suspending operations across impacted areas to keep our community safe,” said company spokesperson, Julian Crowley, in a press release. “This is a serious storm — we’ll resume when it passes.”
At least 15,000 without power across Southern and Central New Jersey
At least 15,000 people were without power in Southern and Central New Jersey on Sunday evening around 8 p.m., according to outage maps from energy providers Jersey Central Power & Light and Atlantic City Electric.
In the Philadelphia area, as snow blanketed the region, roughly 1,500 Peco customers were affected by outages around 7:50 p.m., the company’s outage map indicated. Residents can monitor the company’s outage map to see where an outage has happened and the estimated restoration time.
Residents can receive outage alerts from Peco by texting “ADD OUTAGE” to 697326. To report an outage, text “OUT” to the same number or call 1-800-841-4141 or use the company’s online portal. For downed power lines, call the same number.
PSE&G customers in New Jersey can check the energy company’s outage map. As of 8 p.m., the utility provider had restored service to some 4,600 customers who had lost power on Sunday, according to a company press release. Around 8:50 p.m. nearly 2,800 customers were impacted by outages in the energy provider’s service area which includes parts of Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties and stretches up to Newark.
To report an outage or downed line to PSE&G, call 1-800-436-7734. For hazards that result from a downed line, call 911, said Marijke Shugrue, senior director of communications at PSE&G during a virtual press conference on Sunday.
Never use a power generator indoors during an outage, said Shugrue.
Downed power lines can be very dangerous, and people should stay away from them, Shugrue added, advising people not to touch anything that is in contact with that downed line.
If you can smell gas indoors, exit the building, move at least 350 feet away and call 911, said Shugrue. Peco also advises customers to leave the area immediately if gas is suspected. For an emergency related to gas specifically, customers can call Peco at 1-844-841-4151.
Outside homes, snow should be cleared from pipes, vents, and meters so that carbon monoxide doesn’t accumulate inside, PSE&G advises.
SEPTA riders board the 47 bus at 8th and Market Streets in January.
On Sunday evening SEPTA issued updated guidance on available service for the rest of the day.
All SEPTA bus routes will be suspended at 10 p.m. Sunday, the transit agency announced.
Regional Rail trains and the Norristown High Speed Line will operate until the end of scheduled service on Sunday evening.
The Center City Trolley Tunnel will close at 9 p.m. Sunday. Service on trolleys will continue until the scheduled end of service on Sunday evening or until conditions permit it.
The D Line Trolley route is currently being operated by a bus. That service will conclude at 10 p.m. Sunday and the trolley service by train will resume in the morning weather permitting.
An NJ Transit train pulls into the Red Bank station.
NJ Transit will suspend its all rail service by 9 p.m. Sunday, the agency announced in a news release.
Earlier, the transportation agency stopped its bus, light rail, and Access Link services. Trains were initially excluded from the closures, but Gov. Mikie Sherrill warned the shutdown was likely.
Some routes will end service before 9 p.m., but no trains will leave their origin point after 9 p.m. Customers should check the transit authority’s website or social media for updates.
Bands of heavy snow moving across the Philly region
A man rides his scooter along N. 4th Street as snow falls.
Some “bands” of heavy snow were moving across the region Sunday evening, and that is likely to continue through the night, said Nick Guzzo, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
“Banding,” in which narrow corridors of heavy snow migrate from place to place, are common during winter storms. Areas under the bands can receive a quick couple of inches of snow.
By nightfall some totals of 1 to 2 inches were reported in the Philadelphia area and at the Shore. Forecasters said rates of two inches an hour were possible at times.
Totals are likely to vary around the region, in part to the randomness of banding, said Guzzo.
Banding or not, everyone is going to be seeing a whole lot of snow before it ends Monday, he said.
The weather service is calling for 12-18 inches in the immediate Philadelphia area, with as much as two feet in parts of South Jersey.
Some drifting is possible later when winds – gusting up to 45 mph inland, and 60 mph at the Shore – kick up and the snow becomes drier, said Guzzo.
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A slew of travel restrictions put in place across the Philly region
PennDOT reduced the speed limit on a number of Philadelphia-area highways Sunday evening, including I-95 and the Schuylkill Expressway.
The speed limit is now 45 mph on the following Philly-area roadways:
Interstates 76, 95, 295, 476, 676
U.S. Routes 1, 30, 202, 422
State Routes 63, 100 Spur and 309
PennDOT also issued Tier 4 restrictions on major roadways in Eastern Pennsylvania, which prohibits all commercial vehicles from driving. It also restricts buses, motorcycles, RVs, and passenger vehicles towing trailers.
New Jersey issued a travel ban on all non-exempt vehicles from driving on major roadways beginning at 9 p.m. The New Jersey Turnpike is not includes in the restriction.
Delaware issued Level 1 driving restrictions, which calls on residents residents not to drive “unless there is a significant safety, health, or business reason to do so.”
All Philadelphia City Council offices will be closed Monday as a massive winter storm makes its way across the region, President Kenayatta Johnson’s office announced Sunday afternoon.
A Public Health and Human Services Committee hearing on reproductive health scheduled to take place Monday will be postponed to a later day, .
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker had previously announced all city offices and schools would be closed Monday due to the storm.
Hundreds of flights canceled at Philadelphia International Airport
Philadelphia airport crew plow snow during last month’s storm.
356 flights had been cancelled at Philadelphia International Airport on Sunday as of 5 p.m., as snow started to blanket the city. Another 579 flights were cancelled for Monday, according to FlightAware, which tracks flights.
“Passengers should check on the status of their flights with their airlines—the airlines will also provide guidance on what passengers should do in the event their flights are cancelled,” said airport spokesperson, Heather Redfern on Sunday afternoon via email.
Some 40 million square feet need to be cleared at the airport when snow falls, including on airplane runways and taxiways. The airport also has an additional 11.9 million square feet of space on roadways, ramps and parking lots.
While airplanes are deiced by the airlines, the department of aviation is required to ensure runways and taxiways are clear.
More than two inches of dry snow or half an inch or wet snow trigger closing a runway, according to regulations by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), noted Redfern. Even if flights are canceled by airlines or in the event that the FAA issues a ground stop, the airport does not close, Redfern noted in January ahead of another snowfall.
The machinery that has been used at the airport to tackle snow in the past sports weather related names: Snow Angel, Ice Wookie, Multifarious, Snowmizer, Snow Slayer, Time Bandit, Arctic Fox, Snow Jawn, Nor’easter, Yeti, Storm Breaker, Terra Hawk, Silver Hawk, Heatwave, Tropic Breeze, and Heatmizer.
A man rides his scooter along N. 4th Street as snow falls Sunday. Rain turns into snow late Sunday afternoon in Haddonfield. Pedestrians use their umbrellas to shield themselves from the snow in Old City Sunday. Snow falls at Chew Playground in South Philadelphia. Rain shifts to snow in the Italian Market at 9th and Carpenter Streets.
// Timestamp 02/22/26 4:42pm
PSE&G prepares for outages due to ‘heavy wet snow and elevated winds’
Snow begins to pile up in Wayne, Delaware County Sunday afternoon.
Outages due to the snowstorm are expected, Brian J. Clark, senior vice president of PSE&G, the energy company based in Newark, said in a press conference around 3:45pm on Sunday.
PSE&G, which provides electricity and gas, services parts of Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties.
“The increased heavy wet snow and elevated winds remain our major concerns,” said Clark on Sunday. “We may see large limbs and possible decayed trees fall and make contact with our lines.”
Roughly 3,000 PSE&G electric field personnel were on hand to help restore service on Sunday, which includes tree trimmers and line workers.
Restoring service includes clearing wires that have fallen and may be blocking roads, to ensure emergency responders can circulate. The utility company focuses on restoring service to “the largest blocks of customers first, and working concurrently with other crews downstream to restore individual homes and businesses,” said Clark.
Customers can check the company’s outage map to find out how long restoring service is estimated to take in their area.
“We’re fully staffed, which includes strategically placing folks at different points in our service territory to respond quickly to emergencies,” said Clark. “At PSE&G, our service to our customers, businesses and governmental locations is extremely important to us. Our team will be fully engaged around the clock until everyone is restored.”
‘Code Blue’ for Philadelphia, city to open warming sites
The Hub of Hope will serve as a warming site during the storm.
City officials on Sunday instituted a “Code Blue” that’s set to last until 9 a.m. Tuesday.
A Code Blue is declared when precipitation is falling and temperatures are 32 degrees or lower, or when temperatures feel close to or below 20 degrees due to the wind chill. The designation means that the city sends out outreach teams 24 hours a day to find people without shelter and take them to “safe indoor spaces.”
It also opens up additional shelter beds, and residents in emergency housing are allowed to stay inside all day. (Some shelters require residents to leave in the morning and return at night.)
On Sunday afternoon, the city announced that warming sites would open at several locations across the city on Sunday evening:
Hub of Hope, 4 p.m.: 15th Street trolley entrance in Dilworth Park, 1 S. 15th Street
Samuel Recreation Center, 7 p.m.: 3539 Gaul St.
Kensington Wellness Support Center, 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.: 265 East Lehigh Ave.
Prevention Point, 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.: 2913-15 Kensington Ave.
People who need shelter or who see someone sleeping outdoors should call the city’s homeless outreach hotline at 215-232-1984. People can also visit a homeless intake center; the city’s after-hours intake centers are open 24/7 during a snow emergency. The city will also open its Appletree Family Center at 1430 Cherry Street, at 6 p.m. through Monday.
The city said capacity at the warming centers is 280 and shelter beds also had room to take people; typically, the city operates 3,000 shelter beds year round and adds at least 400 extra during the winter. During Code Blue, another 50 beds are added.
Some advocates said early Sunday the city should do more to get people sleeping on the streets inside. Declaring an “enhanced Code Blue,” which typically occurs after three days of Code Blue conditions have passed, would open warming centers, which allow people spaces to sit to get out of the cold. During the last cold snap, libraries served as warming centers during the day and rec centers opened to shelter people at night.
Some staff at libraries said they had been overwhelmed during this month’s unusually long enhanced Code Blue, and that the city had not provided enough resources or staff to help warming center clients. Still, advocates for homeless Philadelphians say the warming centers are a lifeline in potentially dangerous weather conditions, especially for people who are wary of entering shelters.
Rain switches over to snow in Philly; nearly 2 inches already in Somers Point
Snow falls as a pedestrian walks along N. 2nd Street in Old City Sunday afternoon.
Rain began switching over to snow in Center City Philadelphia and across the region just before 4 p.m. Sunday as residents brace for snowfall totals of a foot or more.
The agency is still calling for 14 to 20 inches of snow to fall in and around Philly through Monday morning, with the heaviest snowfall expect to take place this evening.
Heavy snow could be seen on webcams up and down the Jersey Shore, from Wildwood to Seaside Heights, areas expected to be hit the hardest by the massive storm. All of New Jersey’s 21 counties are expected to get a foot or more of snow, Gov. Mikie Sherrill warned during a news conference earlier in the day.
Camden, other school districts announce snow closures
An Elmo balloon rolls along a sidewalk in Haddonfield during last month’s snowstorm.
As the blizzard bears down, school districts across the region have announced either pivots to virtual instruction or full closures.
Cherry Hill, Moorestown, and Evesham are closed, for instance; so are Lower Merion, Neshaminy and Downingtown. Pennsbury and Central Bucks have called virtual instruction days, while Upper Darby will move to a remote learning day.
Camden schools will be closed. The district has amended the school calendar, tacking on an extra day to the end of the school year. Elementary students will now finish the school year on June 24, and high school students on June 25.
In Delaware, all districts in New Castle County have announced they will be closed Monday. Because of Delaware’s state of emergency, it will be a true snow day for students – no Zoom required.
Philly residents ‘snowload’ ahead of Sunday’s storm
Philadelphia Brewing Co. on Frankford Avenue
The precipitation had yet to shift from rain to snow Sunday afternoon, but patrons at neighborhood bars were already buttoning up their beer coats.
It’s a phenomenon called a “snowload” — when people flock to barstools and find solace from bad weather at the bottom of a citywide special or hot toddy, according to Les & Doreen’s Happy Tap bartender Bill Coburn and others.
With the city shut down and some workplaces closed for inclement weather Monday, blizzards and beer just make for the perfect adult snow day, bargoers said.
“I think it comes from when you’re a kid — you have a snow day and you all go out somewhere, go sledding,” said James Brenner, 43, who lives above Atlantis, The Lost Bar in Kensington. “It’s just an adult version of that.”
Bartender Michelle Graser agreed – barhopping and snow frolicking brings out camaraderie between neighbors.
The crowds weren’t out in earnest just after noon Sunday; there were some stragglers who came to watch the U.S.A.-Canada Olympic men’s hockey matchup. Some of the bars expected business to pick up later Sunday evening and into Monday.
Nearly everyone who spoke with The Inquirer advised “snowload”-ers to tip their bartenders handsomely and avoid drinking and driving. Ideally, they said, to stick to your walkable, corner bar.
Slightly less snow in latest Philly forecast as heavy snow falls in Delaware
Still no snow in Philadelphia as of Sunday afternoon, but forecasters still predict about a foot will fall.
At midafternoon the nor’easter was intensifying off the coast of Virginia, and heavy snow had moved as far north as southern Delaware.
Rain continued in the Philly region, and snow was likely to hold off until 5 or 6 p.m., said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.
AccuWeather’s forecast amount, 10 to 14 inches, was more conservative than the National Weather Service’s call for 14 to 20 inches. The weather service had shaved off a few inches from its earlier forecast as updated computer guidance was less bullish on the amounts.
Kines added that if the snow were to hold off until later, amounts would be lower.
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PATCO to operate on snow schedule Sunday and Monday
A track utility vehicle moves along the PATCO train line earlier this month.
PATCO trains will run at reduced speeds on Sunday and on an abbreviated schedule on Monday as the region braces for a significant winter storm.
On Sunday, trains will operate on a typical Sunday schedule but trips may take up to 10 minutes longer in order to maintain the safety of passengers and crew, the agency said.
On Monday, trains will operate every 12 minutes for most of the day, as opposed to the typical 5-7 minutes at peak times and every 15-30 minutes at other times.
An NJ Transit employee opens a train door at the Hamilton Train Station.
NJ Transit will suspend its bus, light rail, and Access Link service at 6 p.m. Sunday, the agency announced.
Trains will continue to run, but both the agency and Gov. Mikie Sherrill warned a shutdown later this evening was likely.
Speed restrictions of 35 miles per hour will go into effect on the New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, and other highways through the state at 3 p.m.
“In our last storm, I said, ‘don’t travel if you don’t have to.’ Now, I’m saying, ‘don’t travel tonight.’ It’s dangerous,” Sherrill said at a Sunday afternoon news conference.
‘These kind of winters were common when I was a kid’
Eric Dobson, 57, went shopping for groceries in Germantown Sunday before the snowfall began.
Holding a single grocery bag, Eric Dobson, 57, was taking the impending storm with calm and nostalgia.
“These kind of winters were common when I was a kid,” said the Germantown resident. “I guess we have become soft, so we panic.”
With enough salt still stocked up at his home from last month’s storm, Dobson’s mind was on getting some groceries at the Germantown Weavers Way Co-op.
“I don’t know why we always get milk and bread in the storms,” said Dobson with a laugh. “I don’t even think we eat that much bread.”
A last-minute food craving sent Norman Bayard, 52, to the grocery store.
“I’m ready to hunker down,” Bayard said. “My family is at home; we have water and flashlights, but we didn’t have all the ingredients for the chili.”
Ashley Ellis Gitongu, 33, brought her three boys to the grocery store as a last outing before the storm.
“I’m not too worried, but we are going to be stuck inside for two days,” Gitongu said, looking at her 8- and 5-year-old boys roughhousing.
With schools closing in Philly, she predicts “a lot of arts and crafts are in our future.” Her husband, she said, will take the children sledding. But if snow fun isn’t possible, they found a solution during the last storm, turning their home into an “open house.”
“All the furniture is out of the way in the living room, so they can play soccer inside,” Gitongu said. “We have softballs, legos, anything to keep them active and distracted.”
A SEPTA Regional Rail train heads through East Falls during a snowstorm last month.
As the region awaits the arrival of a snowfall that is expected to be in the double digits, SEPTA is warning riders that transit will be impacted.
“We want to be clear with our customers – there are going to be significant service disruptions,” said SEPTA General Manager Scott A. Sauer in a statement. “This is going to include delays, trip cancellations, and likely shutdowns of routes and entire modes of travel.”
Whenever possible, SEPTA will provide customers with at least two hours’ notice before service suspensions, the agency said.
SEPTA has also pretreated parking lots and tracks, tapping into the agency’s stock of 4,000 tons of rock salt. Depending on when the snow stops, SEPTA officials anticipate it could take until midweek to clear the nearly 300 Metro and Regional Rail stations throughout the five-county region.
Pennsylvania issues disaster declaration; commercial driving restrictions begin at 3 p.m.
A line of PennDot salt trucks line up ahead of a storm in December.
Gov. Josh Shapiro announced a disaster emergency during a new conference Sunday afternoon ahead of a massive snowstorm expected to blanket most of Eastern Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia.
The declaration allows state resources to be activated and enables local governments to activate their own emergency plans to respond to the storm, which is expected to drop a foot or more of snow in and around Philadelphia.
Shapiro said state officials expect the heaviest snow — potentially one to two inches an hour — to begin around 5 p.m., and urged drivers to travel only if absolutely necessary.
“I ask you to stay off the roads, particularly when the snow begins,” Shapiro said, “so that the plows can get out there, clear the roads and get you back moving as quickly as possible.”
PennDot Secretary Michael Carroll said commercial truck restrictions will begin at 3 p.m. He also said he expects tighter rules on more motorists during the heaviest portions of the storm.
Despite rain, more than a foot of snow still expected to fall in Philly
Rain falls Sunday afternoon on Cecil B. Moore Avenue in North Philadelphia.
Rain continued to fall Sunday afternoon with temperatures well above freezing, but forecasters say a drastic change for the worse is coming.
Blizzard warnings are in effect for the Philly region and all of New Jersey and Delaware for wind gusts to 45 mph and 14 to 20 inches of snow.
Those estimates may be “a bit high,” said Ray Martin, lead meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, but a “bit high” still would be quite a boatload of snow, the most since February 2010.
Sunday updated forecast from the National Weather Service.
Moderate to major flooding was forecast at the Shore with onshore winds howling up to 60 mph.
The snow will be wet and heavy, ideal for accumulating on trees and wires, and combined with the winds may cause some power outages.
This is the first time ever that all of New Jersey has been under a blizzard warning, said Judah Cohen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research scientist.
Philadelphia has not experienced a verifiable blizzard in 33 years. A blizzard is defined as heavy snow with winds of 35 mph an/or quarter-mile visibility for three consecutive hours.
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A satellite view of a massive winter storm making its way through the Northeast Sunday.
The storm developing off the Southeast Coast will qualify as a meteorological “bomb cyclone,” said Cody Snell, meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
Just what does that mean? The technical description is on the geeky side — a barometric pressure drop of 0.7 inches in the center of a cyclone in a 24-hour period. Unofficially, it’s one mighty intense storm.
It so happens that the U.S. East Coast is in a prime area to experience the effects of those storms, according to the atmospheric scientists who are credited with minting the term in a 1980 paper, John Gyakum and Frederick Sanders.
The warm waters of the Gulf Stream are breeding grounds for potent storms that can form when cold air bounds off the coast.
Gyakum, a professor at McGill University in Montreal, recalled that well before the paper was published, the term “bomb” was used commonly in the halls of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a grad student under Sanders.
The term has taken some blowback, but Gyakum argues that given the potential damage these storms can cause, “bomb” is appropriate.
Trash collection in Philly suspended through Wednesday
Sanitation Department trash trucks with plows clear snow during last month’s storm.
Trash and recycling collection in Philadelphia will be suspended the next few days as the city braces for as much as two feet of snow.
Collections are suspended Monday and Tuesday, the city announced. As of now, service will resume Wednesday on a two-day delay, with Monday collections picked up Wednesday and subsequent days following the same schedule.
The city is also suspending collections in rear driveways for the entire week, due to the possibility of trucks getting stuck in the snow. Residents are asked to set their materials in front of their homes for pickup.
Second trash collection is also suspended this week.
Central High School and the rest of the schools in Philly will be empty Monday.
With an eye toward the coming blizzard, the Philadelphia School District has already called a virtual instruction day for Monday.
All district offices will also operate virtually.
“While we work to the greatest extent possible to keep schools open for in-person learning to accelerate student achievement, we also consider the staff members who are commuting from across the region and keep the safety of students and staff as our top priority,” Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. said in a message to families and staff.
The district gave students one full snow day in January, but has no more cushion built into its calendar. Any further inclement weather days will also be virtual instruction days, Watlington said.
“After Monday, if schools need to remain closed due to inclement weather, the district will provide an update to parents, guardians and employees regarding remote learning,” Watlington said.
Snowfall totals increase in latest forecasts; blizzard warnings expand
Up to two feet of snow could fall in Philly.
The National Weather Service expanded its blizzard warnings to include Philadelphia Sunday morning, as a “potentially historic winter storm” makes its way towards the Northeast.
Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware, and eastern Montgomery Counties, and all of New Jersey and Delaware, are now under blizzard warnings through Monday.
Predicted snowfall has also increased in the past few hours, with as much as two feet of snow possible in the city. Winds gusts up to 60 mph and snowfall rates exceeding one to two inches per hour are also expected, forecasters said.
Blowing and drifting snow could create whiteout conditions, making driving dangerous and nearly impossible. The storm will certainly impact the Monday commute, with the strongest winds expected to occur Sunday night into the morning.
People are encouraged not to travel. Those who must do so should carry a winter survival kit.
“Travel could be very difficult to impossible,” NWS said. “Areas of blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility. The hazardous conditions will impact the Monday morning and evening commutes. Gusty winds could bring down tree branches and result in isolated power outages.”
Timing
Rain is expected to shift to snow by midday Sunday, and will continue through Monday afternoon. The heaviest snowfall is expected Sunday evening and overnight.
The blizzard warning remains in effect from 10 a.m. Sunday to 6 p.m. Monday.
The weather service included the Philly area in its blizzard warning after getting “higher confidence” data showing a likelihood of heavy snowfall and whiteout conditions in the region, said NWS meteorologist Ray Martin.
“Really, the bulk of the snow will start falling after sundown,” Martin said.
Philly snow emergency goes into effect Sunday afternoon; city government closed Monday as schools go virtual
Just as last storm’s snow has finally melted, Philly is expected to be covered with more than a foot of snow.
“Mother Nature has spoken again and made it clear that winter is not over,” said Mayor Cherelle L. Parker during an emergency press conference, declaring a citywide snow emergency, starting 4 p.m Sunday. “Yet another big winter storm is coming. It’s a major snow storm with real accumulation anticipated, and it’s heading our way.”
City government and courts will not open Monday, while public schools will switch to virtual learning. SEPTA riders should expect significant service disruptions over the next three days, said officials, who implored drivers to stay off the road Sunday.
Dominick Morales, the city’s emergency management coordinator, described the expected storm as “dangerous,” adding that heavy, wet snow could threaten trees and power lines.
“Dangerous because of the amount of snowfall that is being forecast in about a 24-hour period, but it’s also dangerous because of high winds — and for Philadelphia — near blizzard conditions. When this storm picks up, we have to take it seriously,” he said.
When all is said and done, the total snowfall may be closeto 18 inches in the city, and could surpass20 inches in South Jersey, where high winds are forecast to create blizzard conditions, according to the National Weather Service. Early Sunday morning, the weather service extended a blizzard warning to cover Philadelphia and Bucks and Delaware Counties, as well as eastern Montgomery County and all of South Jersey.
“It does look like it’s going to be quite an impactful storm for the whole [I-]95 corridor and further east,” said Sarah Johnson, warning coordination meteorologist at the weather service’s Mount Holly office, on Saturday.
This will lead to potentially dangerous driving conditions starting Sunday into Monday. And the Shore and Delaware Bay could experience flooding duringhigh tide Sunday evening.
The last time Philadelphia saw more than a foot of snow was 2016, when 22.4 inches fell in the city on Jan. 22-23.
Officially Philadelphia has not recorded a blizzard since March 1993.
To meet the criteria – three consecutive hours of winds of 35 mph or greater and/or heavy snow reducing visibility to a quarter mile for three straight hours – the conditions would have to be observed at the first-order measuring station, which is at Philadelphia International Airport.
The criteria weren’t met during the record 30.7-inch snowfall of Jan. 7-8, 1996, but at the time many meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly argued that in the court of common sense it was indeed a blizzard.
It certainly acted and felt like on to those who experienced it.
Snow, after it hits 52 degrees? It’s happened before
On Saturday it reached 52 degrees in Philly as more snow vanished (not the mountains), and here we are a day later with a major snowstorm expected.
A warmup preceding a snowfall isn’t all that unusual this time of year, when the battles between the encroaching warm seasons and the retreating winter can be intense. Storms tend to form along thermal boundaries, and this is a prime for those contrasts. In today’s case an invasion of cold air is interacting with warmer air over the Atlantic Ocean.
Once powerful storms get going they can draw in cold air. Plus the upper air this time of year can be quite cold, and heavily falling snow can bring some of that to the surface.
One prime example of a snowstorm following a warmup occurred on Feb. 23, 1987. High temperatures the day before reached the low 50s. During the early morning hours of Feb. 23, heavy snow fell, accumulating 6.5 inches at Philadelphia International Airport, with totals several inches higher elsewhere in the city, and two feet in Downingtown.
On the plus side, a warmup after a snowfall isn’t all that unusual in late winter.
Its size is also a reason the Philadelphia School District wants to shut it down.
It is among the 20 schools the district is proposing to close, citing its low enrollment. The district plans to merge the Mill Creek magnet school into Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, two miles northwest in Overbrook. That move would dissolve the Parkway West name — and its storied history of alternative education, its supporters say.
Community members say the merger would do away with what makes Parkway West special and successful: the only curriculum in the city tailored for teens interested in becoming early childhood educators, specialty classrooms to support students with disabilities, and intimate class sizes that foster tight-knit relationships. And some say it would unfairly limit school options in West Philadelphia.
“It’s a safe environment — a small school which allows for greater touches, and you just don’t get swallowed up in the size of a big school,” said Earl Morgan, a Parkway West special education teacher who coaches three Hoya sports teams.
Morgan added: “We’re losing a real, safe alternative to private education in West Philadelphia.”
The district’s facilities plan, which the school board is expected to vote on this winter, looks to address systemic issues like declining enrollment, aging infrastructure, and disparate programming in part by targeting some schools with large numbers of empty seats. Parkway West is operating with 140 students, or 40% capacity; its 11th-grade class — possibly its last graduating cohort — has just 18 students. Comparatively, there are nearly 500 students at Beeber, which is 54% full.
Morgan said the proposal poses a “logistical nightmare.” Community members have raised concerns about safety and transportation woes to get children to Beeber. Inside Parkway West, emotions range from indifference to outrage, Morgan said.
The closure would leave “a hole” in the neighborhood, said Cecelia Thompson, a Mill Creek resident and former school board member who regularly interacts with the Parkway West community.
West Philadelphia is now staring down an educational landscape devoid of choice: The number of small, individualized magnet high schools, like Parkway West, in the area would shrink to one, while the district prioritizes reinvesting in neighborhood schools. The proposed school closures would disproportionately affect Black students, according to an Inquirer analysis, though the district says its plan is aimed at boosting opportunities and achievement.
This troubles City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, whose district includes Parkway West and a handful of other schools affected by the plan.
“It feels like they’re hollowing out my district,” Gauthier said. “They’re essentially shuttering criteria-based schools that people value and that are accessible to Black and brown children in West and Southwest Philadelphia. They’re completely taking it away … or dumping them into much larger schools that are not going to provide the experience that people want.
“Those kids deserve to have high-quality options right where they live.”
The Parkway model was a pioneering approach to alternative education, hallmarked by nonconformism, wandering classrooms, and a casual, personable learning environment where students called teachers by their first names, alumni told The Inquirer. Shaunda Watson graduated from Parkway Gamma, which later became Parkway West, and said the program took her from a C average to honor-roll student.
“Students like me will get lost in larger classrooms,” Watson, 48, of West Philadelphia, said. She added: “We have students that are exceptional and they will get lost in the sauce if they have to go to neighborhood schools. I don’t think that’s fair.”
For Gamma graduate Shannon Sherrod, 54, of Delaware County, preserving the model is more important than the name: “It’s bittersweet. I hate to see it die off,” Sherrod said.
A winter storm warning is in effect for Sunday — a blizzard warning for the Jersey Shore — and Sunday into Monday Philly’s snow has a shot at doubling the amount that fell on Jan. 25, the National Weather Service says.
“At this point, that’s certainly possible,” Zachary Cooper, meteorologist with the National Weather Service said Saturday. The official forecast is calling for just over a foot in the city, with the potential for the total reaching 18 inches.
Blizzard warnings up for the Shore, where onshore winds are forecast to howl past 35 mph, with moderate to major flooding possible.
While it wasn’t in the official language, the weather service on a Saturday morning might well have included a supermarket stampede warning.
The actual winter storm warning is in effect from 7 a.m. Sunday until 6 p.m. Monday.
Witha surprising level of agreement computer models and their interpreters Saturday were seeing the storm as being inevitable. It was forecast to affect the I-95 corridor from Washington to Boston — a rarity in recent winters.
The weather service listed a 25% chance that totals could approach two feet in the city.
“It’s going to be a long-duration event,” said Cody Snell, meteorologist with NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.
On the plus side, this will not have the staying power of the 9.3 punitive inches that accumulated on Jan. 25 and spent a three-week vacation in the region. No ice is in the forecast, and daytime temperatures above freezing and the February sun likely will erase most it by the end of the workweek.
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What time would the snow begin in Philly?
Precipitation is expected to begin Sunday morning, said Snell, possibly as a mix of snow and rain that becomes all snow.
Snow may have a hard time sticking during the day, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., since temperatures will be near or slightly above freezing and the late-winter sun will be a factor, even it’s just a rumor in the sky.
Plus the ground won’t be especially cold after a Saturday in which the temperature may approach 50 degrees.
However, the upper air is going to be quite cold, Snell said, and when the snow is falling heavily, as it is expected to do Sunday night, “it will cool the column.”
He said areas that get caught in heavy snow “bands” would see the highest amounts.
What would be so different about this storm?
The storm is forecast to mature into a classic nor’easter, so named for the strong winds generated from the Northeast.
Nor’easters are the primary source of heavy snows along I-95, but the ones that produce heavy snow from Washington to Boston have been scarce lately.
“Over the past several years, they’ve been few and far between,” Kines.
The Jan. 25 storm was not a nor’easter per se, said Snell, but more of a case of the “overrunning” of warm air over cold air producing the snow and sleet.
John Gyakum, an atmospheric scientist at McGill University in Montreal and a winter storm specialist, said he anecdotally has seen a trend of coastal storms intensifying too far north to have much of an impact on the Philly region.
If that were the case, it could be a symptom of global warming, said Steve Decker, meteorology professor at Rutgers University. Storms form where cold and warm meet, and that may have been happening farther north lately.
In any event that evidently won’t be the case Sunday.
What could go wrong with the forecasts?
Are you new around here?
The storm consists of multiple moving parts, and as it bounds off the Southeast coast, it is due to intensify rapidly over the warm Atlantic waters.
Meteorologists advised it was still unclear precisely how intense it would become and what path it would take.
Forecast busts have been known to happen, including a famous one 25 years ago. On a Friday, the weather service warned of a storm of “historic” proportions to begin that Sunday.
What Philly got was about an inch of snow that fell over three uneventful hours.
In 2015, the head of the Mount Holly weather service office publicly apologized for a busted forecast.
However, in recent years, the region hasn’t had all that many serious snow scares.
In this case, expect details to jump around even as the precipitation is falling, but Snell said “confidence is growing” that substantial snow is going to happen.
Inquirer staff writer Stephen Stirling contributed to this article.
We’ll show you a photo taken in the Philly-area, you drop a pin where you think it was taken. Closer to the location results in a better score. This week is all about Lunar New Year of the Horse! Good luck!
Round #21
Question 1
Where is this lion grazing?
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ClickTap on map to guess the location in the photo
ClickTap again to change your guess and hit submit when you're happy
You will be scored at the end. The closer to the location the better the score
Margo Reed / Staff Photographer
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The lion dance, most often performed by two dancers in a single costume, is a traditional Chinese ceremonial dance performed during festive occasions such as Lunar New Year. The dance, along with firecrackers and fireworks that are set off during the celebrations, is thought to bring prosperity and ward off malevolent spirits.
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Question 2
Another lion! Where’s this one?
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Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
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These lion dancers were performing outside Bo De Temple, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple at 13th and Washington that is a center of Vietnamese life in South Philadelphia. Lunar New Year is celebrated by many East and Southeast Asian cultures, including but not limited to the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean communities across Philadelphia.
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Question 3
Not a lion but a horse! Where is it?
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Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer
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It’s the Year of the Horse, after all! The Chinese zodiac follows a 12-year cycle based on the lunar calendar, with each year represented by a different animal. This horse is Freeway, who lives at the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club in Strawberry Mansion. Freeway made news two years ago when he escaped his residence and ended up galloping down I-95.
Your Score
ARank
🧨 A crackling job! A result worth celebrating.
BRank
🧧 B is a job well done. An auspicious start of the year.
CRank
🐎 C is a passing, stable grade, but you could do better.
DRank
🐴 D isn’t great, best saddle up to do better next time!
FRank
We don’t want to say you failed, but you were definitely horsing around.
You beat % of other Inquirer readers.
We’ll be back next Saturday for another round of Citywide Quest.
There are two architects of Philadelphia’s chicken-bone temple. One has whiskers. The other has hands.
Curious Philly asked why there were so many chicken bones on the streets of our city. Turns out it’s a whole circle of life testament to gross urban living. Rats rip into trash bags, raccoons drag leftovers into the street, and yes, sometimes humans just … drop them.
Somewhere in Philly, a squirrel is dragging a drumstick across a crosswalk like it just led the Mummers Parade down Broad. A raccoon is performing minor surgery on a Hefty bag. And a rat is simply responding to the opportunity. Philadelphia is the eighth-rattiest city in America (which feels relevant here), and twice-weekly trash pickup means an extra day of opportunity. A ripped bag on the curb is an open invitation.
Meanwhile, dog owners are performing full-contact tug-of-war in the middle of the Gayborhood because their shih tzu refuses to give up a chicken bone that is just as likely to choke them to death.
So please, put a tight lid on the trash cans. Until then, the sidewalk wing night continues.
Homer (Dan Castellaneta) eats a cheesesteak in South Philly in an upcoming episode of ‘The Simpsons.’
They covered the obvious beats. Rocky, Wawa, cheesesteaks, the whole “wooder” universe. That’s low-hanging fruit.
But tucked into the background of the episode was a joke that wasn’t obvious, wasn’t tourist-friendly, and absolutely wasn’t generic: a fictional dog park called Michael Vick Reparation Park, “the best dog park in the world.” That’s a deep-cut, morally messy, and very-Philly sports memory.
Vick arrived here after serving prison time for running a dogfighting ring. His signing split the fan base and forced years of uncomfortable conversations about redemption, talent, and how much winning smooths things over. He rebuilt his career in Eagles green. Some fans forgave, while others never did. The tension is the punchline.
It works because it’s The Simpsons. And it lands because this episode wasn’t written by someone skimming Wikipedia. It was written by Christine Nangle, Oxford Circle-raised, Penn-educated, and still passionately Philly. You don’t make that joke unless you remember how complicated that era was.
The episode even found space to include a nod to the late Dan McQuade in the Roots concert scene. Blink and you’d miss it, but it’s a tribute that meant something if you knew.
So the moral of the story is anyone can animate the Liberty Bell. It takes a local to slip in a joke that sharp and trust the audience to understand it.
Bruce Springsteen and Max Weinberg performing during the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band 2024 World Tour at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on Wednesday, August 21, 2024.
As in, windows-open, water-ice-in-hand, skyline-glowing, baseball-season May.
And instead of Citizens Bank Park, where he played two summers ago under actual sky, the “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour is landing at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Indoors.
This is not anti-arena slander, but May in Philadelphia is outdoor concert weather. It’s built for a ballpark.
The tour includes 19 arena dates and one baseball stadium finale in Washington. Which makes it feel even more criminal that Philly — a city that will scream every word to “Born to Run” — is getting the indoor version.
(We’ll still go, obviously.)
A car slams into the edge of a large pothole on the 700 block of South 4th Street in Philadelphia on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
Pothole season officially begins: F
The snow is melting, which means two things in Philadelphia. People are wearing shorts in 42 degrees and the roads are about to betray us.
As the ice pulls back, the damage reveals itself. Broad Street suddenly looks like it survived a minor asteroid shower. A harmless bump from January is now a cavity. That thin crack you ignored all winter? Now you slow down for it instinctively.
You can tell the season has arrived by the driving alone. Traffic doesn’t flow in straight lines anymore, it zigzags. Group texts start circulating with hyper-specific intersection warnings. A single traffic cone materializes in the middle of the street and quietly becomes semi-permanent infrastructure.
Some craters get patched fast. Others linger long enough to earn neighborhood lore. “Turn left at the one that swallowed the Camry.”
Samantha DiMarco, a popcorn vendor at Citizen Bank Park sells popcorn by balancing the box on her Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Citizens Bank Park without Sam the Popcorn Girl: F
The Phillies will still play. The popcorn will still be sold.
But one of the ballpark’s most recognizable faces won’t be in the aisles for most of the season.
Sam the Popcorn Girl is a minor celebrity at Citizen’s Bank Park, balancing popcorn on her head, popping up on Phanavision, and playfully sparring with Mets fans.
Over the last decade, she’s become an essential part of the atmosphere at the ballpark. Sure, she’s not on the roster, but she was part of the team. And this summer, she’ll be working on a Carnival cruise ship instead.
It’s temporary, and she promises she’ll be back. But this is Philadelphia. We’ve seen how this goes. First it’s a cruise contract. Next thing you know, the bullpen collapses in June.
Remove one of the ballpark’s regulars and suddenly everything feels off, and it’s way too early to be testing the baseball gods.
Booking the Shore before the snow melts: A-
There are still snowbanks clinging to street corners in Philadelphia.
And yet Margate agents are fielding multiple rental calls before lunchtime.
Last year, people waited, booking shorter stays and trying to read the market. This year, they’re locking in weeks while there’s still salt on the sidewalk.
The Shore has always been a seasonal reset button. But booking it in February (before anyone has even vacuumed the sand out of last year’s trunk) feels like a quiet shift.
After a few summers of sticker shock, people are now less afraid of being priced out then they are of being too late.
Soon we’ll be arguing over beach tags and debating Avalon vs. Sea Isle. Soon someone will be panic-buying Wawa hoagies on the Parkway.
We thought it was still winter. But summer, apparently, starts when the snow is still melting.
The brief confrontation came this week in front of the empty frames where visitors had been taping informal signs to fill the void where the original panels hung at the President’s House, after President Donald Trump’s administration removed the slavery exhibits last month.
Signs and notes placed by visitors at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park.
Glenn Bergman and his wife Dianne Manning were just arriving at the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition’s annual Presidents’ Day observance. They had earlier attended the weekly ICE vigil a few blocks away. Bystanders yelled at the woman to stop as she declared it was her “First Amendment right” while tearing off the notes.
Bergman stepped in to block her, saying later, he “had to do something.” After a few seconds everyone stepped away, accusing her of “littering.”
She grabbed the papers off the ground and left abruptly, shouting “George Washington made this country great… for white people.”
The entire interaction lasted less than three minutes — and unfolded right on the other side of the wall from where the main advocacy organization leading the fight to protect the President’s House was gathered.
The Avenging the Ancestors Coalition holds their annual Presidents’ Day observance at the President’s House Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. The empty frame in the foreground held a panel about slavery that was removed.
As the week of Presidents’ Day ends, I’m moving that presidential apostrophe back a letter and remembering my time photographing at the President’s House.
It is almost a year since our current President signed Executive Order #14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” on Mar. 27, 2025.
In addition to requiring the Secretary of the Interior to develop a plan to improve Independence National Historical Park in preparation for our 250th birthday, he directed National Park Service staff to identify language and historical depictions that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
Flowering trees by Independence Hall in spring, 2025.
In May, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order that signs be posted in all National Park asking employees and visitors to report any negative information.
A sign and QR code located in Independence National Historical Park inviting the public to submit feedback on repairs, improvements, and content that is “negative about either past or living Americans.”
In July, President Donald Trump’s administration started taking steps to review or remove materials key to understanding the history of race in America.
But it didn’t happen until last month.
I was on another assignment nearby when the newspaper received a tip workers were on the site “with tape measures.”
They weren’t talking to our reporter, already on the site, when I arrived to find park service workers indeed examining the panels. So I just assumed if they would be dismantling the exhibits it would happen in the middle of the night — like when the statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo was “disappeared” and his Italian Market mural was erased under cover of darkness in 2020.
I made a few photos then left to edit and upload, only to get a text, “it’s happening now.”
It was awkward as the workers asked me to “give us a break,” while I hovered around — not right on top of them — watching every move. I replied we were both doing our jobs.
Bolts are removed from Interpretive panels as the exhibits are taken off the walls in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026.
It wasn’t long before other news media arrived, and I continued to document the entire removal. I was joined by photographer Elizabeth Robertson who made a photo from our newsroom overlooking the site. Later that evening, I returned to a much quieter scene.
The President’s House Historical Park Jan. 22, 2026, after all historical exhibits were removed. The site, a reconstructed “ghost” structure titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010), serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America.
That wasn’t the end of it. Protests continued…
Historical interpreter Michael Carver talks with visitors while he and other members of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides host “History Matters” offering “Free Talks with Tour Guides” Jan. 24, 2026 at the President’s House site two days after more than a dozen educational displays about slavery were removed from the site.
… and the City of Philadelphia sued the National Park Service and Department of Interior. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe inspected the removed panels in storage for herself, visited the President’s House site, then ordered the federal government “restore the President’s House Site to its physical status as of January 21, 2026,” which is the day before the exhibits were removed.
Trump administration officials appealed her ruling calling it “unnecessary judicial intervention” and on Presidents’ Day, when Glenn Bergman and Dianne Manning of Mt. Airy were attending the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition rally, Judge Rufe issued an injunction that required the federal agencies to restore the interpretive panels.
So we all waited to see what happened next. The “what’s next?” was two days later the federal judge, citing the agencies’ “failure to comply” set a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday.
A spokesperson for the White House defended their inaction saying removal of the exhibits is not final because the Department of the Interior is “engaged in an ongoing review of our nation’s American history exhibits in accordance with the President’s executive order to eliminate corrosive ideology, restore sanity, and reinstate the truth.”
A cleaded up and power-washed President’s House site the day after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore the slavery exhibits that the National Park Service removed from the President’s House in January.
Upon hearing the news I thought, “Friday is my day off. I will just have to read what my excellent reporting colleagues Fallon Roth, Maggie Prosser, and Abraham Gutman write about it. And live vicariously through the photos by whichever of my photo co-workers gets the assignment.“
I just couldn’t stay away, so I returned to the site early Thursday morning, just to “babysit.”
After about 30 minutes and only seeing two visitors, a park service worker arrived with a 5-gallon Lowe’s plastic blue bucket ($4.95, lid sold separately) and another, plain white plastic pail full of rags. More prep work for Friday, my day off, I figured.
When he returned with a six-foot Little Giant ladder ($255.99, King Kombo), I asked “so you’re not just doing more cleaning, right?”
I alerted my newsdesk, and spent the next six hours there.
Philadelphia Inquirer staff photographer Tom Gralish edits his news photos at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Feb, 19, 2026 as park service workers restore the slavery exhibits that were removed in January. Gralish had met and talked with the NPS employee earlier in the morning before other news media arrived at the site, and hadn’t noticed a panel would be going back up later where he was sitting. “You’re okay,” the worker said, “you were here first.”
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
February 16, 2026: What came first? The dirty snowpacked berm of frozen slush or the graffiti? February 9, 2026: Walking through a corrugated metal culvert called the “Duck Tunnel,” a pedestrian navigates the passageway under the SEPTA tracks on the Swarthmore College campus. February 2, 2026: A light-as-air Elmo balloon rolls along a sidewalk in Haddonfield, propelled by the wind as Sunday’s heavy snow starts to turn to ice and sleet. January 26, 2026: The President’s House in Independence National Historical Park hours Jan, 22, after all historical exhibits were removed following President Trump’s Executive Order last March that the content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. be reviewed. The site, a reconstructed “ghost” structure titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010), serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America.January 19, 2026: A low-in-the-sky winter sun is behind the triangular pediment of the “front door” of the open-air President’s House installation in Independence National Historical Park. The reconstructed “ghost” structure with partial walls and windows of the Georgian home known in the 18th century as 190 High St. is officially titled, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010). It is designed to give visitors a sense of the house where the first two presidents of the United States, George Washington and John Adams, served their terms of office. The commemorative site designed by Emanuel Kelly, with Kelly/Maiello Architects, pays homage to nine enslaved people of African descent who were part of the Washington household with videos scripted by Lorene Cary and directed by Louis Massiah. Deepika Iyer holds her niece Ira Samudra aloft in a Rockyesque pose, while her parents photograph their 8 month-old daughter, in front of the famous movie prop at the top of the steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Iyer lives in Philadelphia and is hosting a visit by her mother Vijayalakshmi Ramachandran (partially hidden); brother Gautham Ramachandran; and her sister-in-law Janani Gautham who all live in Bangalore, India.January 5, 2026: Parade marshals trail behind the musicians of the Greater Kensington String Band heading to their #9 position start in the Mummers Parade. Spray paint by comic wenches earlier in the day left “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” shadows on the pavement of Market Street. This year marked the 125th anniversary of Philly’s iconic New Year’s Day celebration.Dec. 29, 2025: Canada geese at sunrise in Evans Pond in Haddonfield, during the week of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. December 22, 2025: SEPTA trolley operator Victoria Daniels approaches the end of the Center City Tunnel, heading toward the 40th Street trolley portal after a tour to update the news media on overhead wire repairs in the closed tunnel due to unexpected issues from new slider parts.December 15, 2025: A historical interpreter waits at the parking garage elevators headed not to a December crossing of the Delaware River, but an event at the National Constitution Center. General George Washington was on his way to an unveiling of the U.S. Mint’s new 2026 coins for the Semiquincentennial, December 8, 2025: The Benjamin Franklin Bridge and pedestrians on the Delaware River Trail are reflected in mirrored spheres of the “Weaver’s Knot: Sheet Bend” public artwork on Columbus Boulevard. The site-specific stainless steel piece located between the Cherry Street and Race Street Piers was commissioned by the City’s Public Art Office and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and created and installed in 2022 by the design and fabrication group Ball-Nogues Studio. The name recalls a history that dominated the region for hundreds of years. “Weaver’s knot” derives from use in textile mills and the “Sheet bend” or “sheet knot” was used on sailing vessels for bending ropes to sails. November 29, 2025: t’s ginkgo time in our region again when the distinctive fan-shaped leaves turn yellow and then, on one day, lose all their leaves at the same time laying a carpet on city streets and sidewalks. A squirrel leaps over leaves in the 18th Century Garden in Independence National Historical Park Nov. 25, 2025. The ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is considered a living fossil as it’s the only surviving species of a group of trees that existed before dinosaurs. Genetically, it has remained unchanged over the past 200 million years. William Hamilton, owner the Woodlands in SW Phila (no relation to Alexander Hamilton) brought the first ginkgo trees to North America in 1785.November 24, 2025: The old waiting room at 30th Street Station that most people only pass through on their way to the restrooms has been spiffed up with benches – and a Christmas tree. It was placed there this year in front of the 30-foot frieze, “The Spirit of Transportation” while the lobby of Amtrak’s $550 million station restoration is underway. The 1895 relief sculpture by Karl Bitter was originally hung in the Broad Street Station by City Hall, but was moved in 1933. It depicts travel from ancient to modern and even futuristic times. November 17, 2025: Students on a field trip from the Christian Academy in Brookhaven, Delaware County, pose for a group photo in front of the Liberty Bell in Independence National Historical Park on Thursday. The trip was planned weeks earlier, before they knew it would be on the day park buildings were reopening after the government shutdown ended. “We got so lucky,” a teacher said. Then corrected herself. “It’s because we prayed for it.”
For nearly a century, the Samuel Pennypacker School has survived — a three-story brick anchor of the West Oak Lane neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia.
Now it faces the threat of extinction.
ThePhiladelphia School District says the school’s building score is “unsatisfactory” and modernizing it would cost more than $30 million. District officials are calling for shutteringPennypacker following the 2026-27 school year, funnelingits students to nearby Franklin S. Edmonds or Anna B. Day schools— part of a citywide proposal to close20 district schools.
The recommendation, district officials say, is no reflection of the “incredible teachers, community, [and] students” at Pennypacker. Rather, it is an attempt by the district to optimize resources and equity for students.
Like many district schools, Pennypacker, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade, is aging and outdated, having opened in 1930. At just over 300 students, it is among the city’s smaller schools — and operating at about64% of building capacity.
Yet, it is those same qualities — its size and longevity — that represent some of its greatest strengths, say those in the school community who are not happy about the proposed closure.
It’s a school, they say, that is more than the sum of its aging parts.
On the school’s walls are pocks of chipped paint, yes, but also the colorful detritus of a small but vibrant student population: a poster composed of tiny handprints in honor of Black History Month; a “Blizzard of Positivity” — handwritten messages reading “Smile” and “Hugs” and “Help your friends when they fall.”
It’s where Wonika Archer’s children enrolled soon after the family emigrated from Guyana — the first school they had ever known.
“A lot of firsts,” Archer said. “Their first friends, their first teachers outside of their parents.”
It’s where, since 1992, Andreas Roberts’ youth drill team has been allowed to practice. The team, which includessome Pennypacker students, recently participated in its first competition andwon first place.
“Pennypacker has been very, very useful to us,” he said. “We have nowhere else to practice for the kids.”
It’s where Christine Thorne put her kids through school, her son and her daughter, and where her grandchildren now go. Around the school, they call her “Grandmama.”
“I feel as if my household is being destroyed,” she said recently.
For students, news of the imminent closure has been no less jarring.
When Janelle Pearson’s fourth-grade students learned recently that their school was poised to be shuttered under the district’s plan, they took it as a grim reflection on themselves.
“It makes them feel like, ‘What did we do wrong that they want to close our school?’” said Pearson, who has taught at Pennypacker for abouta decade. “That’s the part that tugs at your heart.”
Unwilling to go down without a fight, the fourth graders resolved to do what they could. Soon, a poster took shape, in marker and crayon, a series of pleas addressed to Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.
“Pennypacker is our home.”
“Don’t uproot our education.”
“Our neighborhood depends on this school!”
The poster was presented to district officials earlier this month at a community meeting held in the school’s wood-seated auditorium.
At that meeting, representatives from the district did their best to explain the reasoning for the proposed closures. They presented a tidy PowerPoint and talked of student retention and program alignment, of building capacity and neighborhood vulnerability scores.
It stood in stark contrast to the parents and teachers and staffers who, one by one, held a microphone and spoke of love and family and community, of teachers and staffers who routinely went above and beyond to make their children feel safe. To make them feel special.
“It’s not just about a building,” said Richard Levy, a onetime Pennypacker teacher who now works at St. Joseph’s University. “The challenges here aren’t reasons to close the school — they’re reasons to strengthen it.”
Whether their appeals might affect the district’s decision remains to be seen. Other schools in the district slated for closure have mounted efforts of their own, and, despite a recent grilling by City Council members, it seems all but certain that several schools will ultimately shutter.
The National Park Service does not need to restore the exhibits for the the moment, the order said, but is enjoined from damaging the exhibits and required to take “all necessary steps” to ensure they are not harmed.
The order further prohibits the federal government from making any other changes to the site, including setting up replacement exhibits, which the Department of Interior said would have been installed “in the coming days” if not for the injunction.
“[The Department of Interior and National Park Service] are to preserve the status quo as to the President’s House as of the entry of this order,” Hardiman wrote.
The order is not accompanied by an opinion or memorandum explaining which of the government’s arguments Hardiman found compelling.
Hardiman’s ruling landed an hour before the deadline District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe set for the administration to restore the site to its condition before the Jan. 22 abrupt removal of the exhibits.
In a legal filing Friday, U.S. attorneys said National Park Service staff had begun planning to reinstall the exhibits once they received the Feb. 16 order to restore the site.
On Thursday, 16 of 17 glass panels were reinstalled, with the remaining one needing repairs. Prior to the Third Circuit order, National Park Service employees on Friday restored panels around the site’s glass-enclosed archaeological dig, the wayside panel identifying the site, and four functioning video monitors, the federal government said.
The federal government also had not reinstalled 13 metal panels, but was in the process of doing so prior to the stay, according to the filing.
The city declined to comment on Hardiman’s order. The National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The government argued to the Third Circuit that Rufe misunderstood the difference between the laws and agreements that govern the 55-acre Independence Hall National Historic Park and the stricter rules regarding Independence Hall National Historic Site, the city-owned block between Chestnut and Walnut Streets.
The President’s House, on the corner of Sixth and Market Streets, sits on federal land and the law “imposes no restriction on the government’s removal of the President’s House exhibit,” the filing said.
The city failed to demonstrate harm from the removal of the exhibits, the administration argued, because it has other avenues to promote the history of slavery in the President’s House.
But an injunction forcing the restoration of the exhibits violates the federal government’s free-speech rights, the stay request argued.
“It requires the display and operation of expressive exhibits — at a marquee national historic site in the run-up to the nation’s 250th anniversary — when the government has chosen not to display those exhibits,” the court filing said.
The city responded to the request in a letter in which it expressed confusion about what the administration was asking for. After all, the government already began restoring the exhibits.
“It is not clear whether the United States is asking the court for permission to re-remove the panels that were just reinstalled yesterday, or whether they are asking to be relieved of the duty to reinstall the remaining panels, or whether they are asking for more time to restore the remaining panels because today’s deadline is not feasible,” the city’s letter said.
Either way, the city reiterated its opposition to a stay.
Philadelphia’s lawsuit was the first in the nation challenging the removal of exhibits from national parks in accordance with Trump’s March executive order, which instructed the Interior Department to remove any content or displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
The site will see no further changes for now. Hardiman placed the injunction appeal on an expedited track. With the current deadlines set by the judge, a ruling on the injunction is unlikely before May.
Famed mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar left a legacy shaped by the glimmering murals and large-scale tile works he created throughout Philadelphia.
Zagar, who died at 86 on Thursday due to complications of heart failure and Parkinson’s disease, will be remembered for his striking works and unrelenting mission to beautify the city he called home for more than five decades.
Zagar’s nearly 200 works can be found throughout the country but the bulk of his famed mosaics are within city lines.
Here’s some of the largest and boldest works the iconic artist handcrafted in Philadelphia.
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Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens
1020 South St.
Tourists visit Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, which was built by Isaiah Zagar, in 2017.
As inescapable as Zagar’s work is in Philadelphia, the Magic Gardens serves as the artist’s grandest, most well-known project. Dating back to 1994, it consists of thousands of square feet of entirely mosaicked space stretched across three city lots, showcasing what Zagar once referred to as his “voluminous” output of art.
Magic Gardens Studio
1002 Watkins St.
Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens executive director Emily Smith (left) and Preservation and Facilities manager Stacey Holder stand in the former studio of mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar in 2024.
If the Magic Gardens is the heart of Zagar’s output, his Magic Gardens Studio is the brain. Purchased in 2007, this 10,000-square-foot South Philly warehouse stands virtually covered — inside and out — in Zagar’s mosaics, and long served as his studio and storage space.
Home of Isaiah and Julia Zagar
826 South St.
Isaiah and Julia Zagar are photographed in front of their home in South Philadelphia in 2024.
It doesn’t get much more personal than the Zagar’s home, where he and his family lived for about 40 years. Similar to his South Philly studio, the space is mosaicked inside and out in Zagar’s signature style, including a roughly 544-square-foot piece across the building’s façade.
‘This Is the Day, Jesus Journey’
1036 South St.
Just steps from the Magic Gardens sits the Waters Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, its side showcasing the 2006 mosaic Jesus Journey. At more than 400 square feet, it uses excerpts from the Bible detailing the life of Jesus Christ. Across the street, another similarly sized installation titled Bilal From Pakistan was completed in 2012 alongside artist Bilal Khan.
‘Rose and the Firefighters’
600 block of Alder Street
Among Zagar’s most iconic murals, this piece stretches some 6,000 square feet along Alder and Kater Streets, just east of the Magic Gardens. Completed in 2004, this piece adorns the former headquarters of Engine Company 11, a celebrated Black fire company in Philadelphia between 1919 and 1952.
Jim’s Steaks
400 South St.
Ken Silver, owner of Jim’s Steaks, in a room filled with mosaic tile by Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar in the former Eyes Gallery, run by Julia Zagar for decades.
Blocks from Zagar’s home, Jim’s Steaks showcases the artist’s mosaic work in a space formerly occupied by the Eyes Gallery, which Julia Zagar ran for decades. A 2022 fire damaged both the gallery and the neighboring original Jim’s building, prompting the cheesesteak shop to expand next door — revealing a treasure trove of interior artwork that had long been covered.
Schell Street Walls
600 S. Schell St.
Vacant lots, rowhouses, and cheesesteak shops weren’t Zagar’s only canvasses — he also covered entire side streets in his mosaics. Completed over nearly 30 years, the 600 block of Schell Street showcases the artist’s work on both sides of the street. Many pieces were created during community workshops Zagar held there over the years.
Fitness Works
714 Reed St.
There are better known murals than the one that occupies the lower facade and parking lot of this South Philly gym, but few are as large. At roughly 1,500 square feet, this piece was completed in 2014 as part of a mosaic mural workshop, and has since come to serve as a landmark.
‘Homage to Mike Mattio, Master Plumber’
700 block of Reese Street
Occupying the side of a number of rowhouses, this Zagar mosaic serves as a tribute to its eponymous Mike Mattio, a former plumber of the artist’s. The piece, with Mattio’s portrait included, is something of a high-brow installation, thanks to references calling out artists ranging from William Blake to Duke Ellington.
‘Hip Hop Café’
705 Passyunk Ave.
This building has housed quite a few businesses over the years. At least since 2002, it has showcased Zagar’s Hip Hop Café mosaic mural. The piece covers the structure’s 500-square-foot front, which today is home to Momoka Ramen Skewers’ Queen Village location.
Mae Laster, 87, of Philadelphia, retired French, algebra, and photography teacher for the School District of Philadelphia, longtime president of Friends of Wynnefield Library, award-winning committee chair for the Philadelphia section of the National Council of Negro Women Inc., community center adviser, church trustee, volunteer, and undisputed Laster family Scrabble champion, died Friday, Jan. 2, of age-associated decline at Lankenau Medical Center.
Born in Philadelphia, Ms. Laster earned academic degrees at West Philadelphia High School and Temple University. She was a lifelong reader and stellar student, and she tutored her high school classmates in math and later taught elementary and middle school students for 30 years.
“She was a firm and no-nonsense kind of teacher,” a former student said in an online tribute. “But she was a lot of fun. As an adult, she always offered guidance and advice.”
Her daughter, Lorna Laster Jackson, said: “She had a passion for learning and sharing with others. She was always an advocate for children.”
Ms. Laster chaired community service and Founder’s Day committees for the National Council of Negro Women Inc.
Ms. Laster served as president of Friends of Wynnefield Library for more than 20 years and was active at its many book readings, content discussions, concerts, and fundraisers. She earned several important financial grants for the library, and her personal collection of books at home numbered more than 1,000.
“She loved reading to our young patrons, especially during our Dr. Seuss birthday celebrations,” library colleagues said in a tribute.
She chaired community service and Founder’s Day celebration committees for the National Council of Negro Women and earned the local section’s achievement award in 1998. “Mae was a blessing to the Philadelphia section,” colleagues said in a tribute. “We will always remember her feisty way of asking questions and not easily put off.”
Ms. Laster was an advisory board member at the Leon H. Sullivan Community Development Center and a trustee at Zion Baptist Church. Colleagues at the community center called her “a very thoughtful and talented person.” They said: “She was always forthright and had a strong opinion.”
Ms. Laster (center) especially enjoyed reading to young people at the Wynnefield Library.
At church, she was a member of the New Day Bible Class and proofreader for the newsletter. She also volunteered with the Wynnefield Residents Association, the Girl Scouts, and the 4-H Club.
In a citation, City Council members praised her achievements regarding “education, community service, and all those whose lives were enriched by her wisdom, kindness, and unwavering faith.” In a resolution, members of the state Senate noted “her extraordinary life, her enduring contributions, and her lasting impact on education, community, and faith.”
Friends said in online tributes that she “had a great sense of humor” and was “the sweetest mom on the planet, who was always like a mom to me.” One friend called her “a community-minded leader who advocated tirelessly to preserve the quality of life in Wynnefield.”
At home, Ms. Laster studied the dictionary, knew words that nobody else did, and became the undisputed Scrabble champion of her family and friends. She was so good, her daughter said, that nobody volunteered to play against her. “It was humiliating,” her daughter said.
Ms. Laster was a lifelong advocate for children.
Mae R. Johnson was born June 5, 1938, in Philadelphia. She grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C., with her grandmother and returned to Philadelphia in the 1950s to live with her mother and begin high school.
She was an excellent student, especially good with words and numbers, and she graduated from West Philadelphia High in 1956 and earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education at Temple.
She met Francis Laster in the neighborhood, and they married, and had a daughter, Lorna, and sons Francis Jr., Charles, and Ahman. Her husband owned and operated the popular Rainbow Seafood Market, and they lived in West Philadelphia and Wynnefield. They divorced later. He died in 2020.
Ms. Laster enjoyed bowling, photography, and horticulture. She listened to jazz, classical, and gospel music. She collected butterflies and stamps.
Ms. Laster was “all about positive change,” her daughter said.
She shared recipes with friends and kept in touch through memorable phone calls. She helped organize high school reunions and appreciated the educational TV shows on the Public Broadcasting System.She retired from teaching about 20 years ago.
“She was all about positive change,” her daughter said. “She spoke from compassion and her truth. She did more good than she knew. She was dynamite.”
In addition to her children, Ms. Laster is survived by six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, three great-great-grandchildren, a sister, and other relatives. A brother died earlier.
A celebration of her life was held earlier.
Donations in her name may be made to Friends of Wynnefield Library, Attn: Terri Jones, 5325 Overbrook Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19131.
Ms. Laster graduated from West Philadelphia High School in 1956 and earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education at Temple.
