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Germantown-based WeatherBug forecasting service is predicting 10 to 20 inches Tuesday and Wednesday. The snowfall is projected once again be at its most intense during the overnight period, when the flakes could fall at up to three inches per hour, according to WeatherBug's chief meteorologist Mark Hoekzema.

The snow should begin "in a few fits and starts" Tuesday afternoon but reach its heaviest between midnight and 10 a.m. Wednesday, Hoekzema said.

"People should just be prepared to not go anywhere again, starting late tomorrow afternoon or early evening," Hoekzema said Monday evening. "Probably on Wednesday they're not going anywhere either."

Snowplows are scheduled to reach all neighborhoods by noon today, according to a statement from Montgomery County.

"A record number of callers have overwhelmed the phone line, as residents panic to get out of their neighborhoods before the next storm," according to the statement.

The storm moving across the Midwest has been much more difficult to predict than the storm that arrived Feb. 5, according to Hoekzema. Although the focal point of the storm is expected to be in Maryland and Pennsylvania, the forecast early in the week of 10 to 20 inches reflected uncertainty about just how powerful it will be.

Unlike the Feb. 5 storm, when much of the snow that fell early was heavy and wet, precipitation in temperatures hovering around freezing, the air and ground temperatures at the start of the upcoming storm are expected to be in the low- to mid-20s. This would create conditions for a drier, lighter snow fall, Hoekzema said.

If this week's storm lives up to forecasts, it could set the record in the mid-Atlantic for the most snow on the ground at any one time, Hoekzema said.

"I can't imagine where they're going to put the snow," he said.