It's a bookend storm to a winter that saw a big record early snow in October; now a record snow in spring.  A soaking rain will benefit the New England drought, but a wet snow falling on leafy trees with strong winds threaten power outages and tree damage in Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

The powerful storm will lash the east coast with up to four inches of rain and wind gusts to 50 miles an hour.  Heavy, wet snow is expected in western New York and Pennsylvania down to West Virginia with "thunder-snows" brining two to five inches of snow in low elevations and nine to 14 inches in the high peaks.  Snow is not unusual well into May in these areas, but amounts this heavy have only occurred a couple times in history.