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A winter storm arriving this morning and continuing into Saturday is expected to bring 3 to 6 inches of snow and below-freezing temperatures to the area, according to Accuweather senior meteorologist John Feerick.
Cold air will "plunge in" behind the storm, Feerick said, with temperatures today reaching a high in the upper 20s and Saturday staying in the upper teens.
"With the wind, it will feel colder," Feerick said. "The real feel on Saturday will be about zero. On Sunday, it won't be as harsh because there will be less wind."
As temperatures will remain below freezing, Director of Emergency Services Mark Taylor said that all of Blair County's municipalities are prepared and will open warming shelters in case residents lose power.
"We've been pretty fortunate," Taylor said. "We haven't had many outages. We're just watching closely and working with the municipalities closely."
Taylor said that if a situation arises where the 911 center would become overloaded with calls, they would open an emergency services control system to help them.
While they're not "expecting ice in terms of freezing rain," Feerick said that there will "certainly be slippery travel conditions."
"I don't think we need to worry about that," Feerick said. "(The snow) should be light and fluffy -- fairly easy to shovel -- not heavy, wet snow."
PennDOT and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission are advising residents to avoid unnecessary travel during the storm and have already restricted travel on I-99, according to a release from the agencies. Roads have been pretreated ahead of the storm, but there could still be icy patches on some surfaces.
"With freezing temperatures, roads that look wet may actually be icy, and extra caution is needed when approaching bridges and highway ramps where ice can form," the release read.
PennDOT urged residents to use caution, reduce speeds, be aware of changing weather conditions, have a prepared emergency kit and be extra careful around operating snow-removal equipment.
According to preliminary PennDOT data, last winter "there were 135 crashes resulting in one fatality and 61 injuries on snowy, slushy, or ice-covered roadways where aggressive-driving behaviors such as speeding or making careless lane changes were factors."
Additional winter driving and other highway safety information is available at www.PennDOT.gov/safety. To help make decisions about winter travel, motorists can go to www.511PA.com.
Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.