Gov. Tom Wolf declares state of emergency for southeast Pennsylvania

Less than a week removed from the last snowstorm, the Northeast is bracing for another pounding.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf declared a state of emergency Tuesday for the eastern and central parts of the state. Philadelphia, where much of the storm is expected to hit, already closed schools and municipal offices.

The winter storm warning, issued by the National Weather Service for eastern Pennsylvania to most of New England, is expected to last from late Tuesday night into Thursday morning.

The State College area will be mostly on the outside of the storm, but is still expected to get 1-3 inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service.

The bulk of the damage is expected in the eastern part of the state, where forecasters are calling for up to 18 inches in the Poconos and winds of around 30 mph in suburban Philadelphia. Coming on the heels of last week’s storm, many are still trying to recover from downed trees and utility poles that caused widespread outages.

“This storm may not have the extremely high winds as the one last week, but it will dump significant amounts of snow across a wider area and that prospect is moving us to take additional aggressive steps to restrict heavier vehicles from the interstates,” Wolf said in a release.

The state department of transportation issued travel restrictions on parts of interstates 84, 380, 80, 78 and 81, banning various types of tractor-trailers, passenger vehicles hauling trailers, RVs and motorcycles starting at midnight.

With the state of emergency, extra staff and personnel will be deployed to monitor conditions and respond to needs over the next couple days.

This story was originally published March 6, 2018 at 9:33 PM with the headline "Gov. Tom Wolf declares state of emergency for southeast Pennsylvania."