‘Snow and icy mess’ coming to Centre County. You might want to stay home this weekend
Temperatures this month in Centre County have been more than 10 degrees above average and snowfall totals are about 10 inches below average, but those statistics could soon change.
Fluffy snow totaling about one to three inches is expected to begin daybreak Saturday and will likely be followed by a mixture of sleet and freezing rain Saturday afternoon, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Adam Douty said Thursday.
Road conditions could “get bad fairly quickly” Saturday morning, Douty said, though he expects the system to move through the area quickly, possibly as soon as Saturday evening.
“The storm system is moving out of the southern Rockies and into the central Plains. We’ll see that move across the Midwest and through the Great Lakes, and eventually into the northeast by Saturday,” Douty said. “It’s pulling up a lot of warmer, more moist air from the south, so you get that moisture heading into the cold air and that’s what’ll produce the snow and icy mess.”
Sunday is forecast to be cold and windy, with a high of 27 degrees. Temperatures likely won’t rise above freezing until Thursday, Douty said.
That will be the first prolonged stretch this winter of days with high temperatures below freezing, which is “pretty late for that to happen,” Douty said.
About six inches of snow has accumulated in State College since Nov. 1, according to National Weather Service data. The borough averages about 16 inches of snow during the same period.
The agency expects about four to six inches of snowfall for nearly all of Centre County, though said there is “considerable uncertainty.” The Weather Channel expects about five to eight inches.