Weather

Wintry weather moves into area ahead of serious weekend storm

PITTSBURGH — A Winter Storm Watch has been issued for all of Western Pennsylvania.

The alert from the National Weather Service covers all counties in our viewing area. The watch begins Saturday morning and runs through Sunday afternoon.

STORY: WINTER STORM WATCH issued for Western Pa. this weekend

Snow should gradually begin to mix with freezing rain or rain at times from near Pittsburgh and points south as temperatures hover right near the freezing mark during the night hours.

Expect any untreated roads to get slick as snow and mixed precipitation occurs. Pittsburgh has a chance of seeing one inch of snow or less through Friday.

In general, cities north and east of the Pittsburgh area, such as Butler and Kittanning, may see anywhere from 1 to 2 inches. There may be some slick spots around for your Friday morning commute, so drive with caution.

Our team is still tracking a bigger system that will move in this weekend.

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Right now, the precipitation looks to begin as snow across far northern Pennsylvania in the early-morning hours of Saturday.

That precipitation will spread in from the west during the late morning and early afternoon hours of Saturday. Pittsburgh looks to see either rain or snow initially. We’re still ironing out the details.

Areas north of Pittsburgh look to be mostly snow. A changeover to all snow is forecast late Saturday night and into early Sunday morning as arctic air builds in.

We're still tracking where the rain/snow line will set up. What we do know is that areas north of Pittsburgh will have a better chance of high snow totals, but things likely will change as we analyze the model data in the days ahead. It's still possible that Pittsburgh sees high totals as well.

The storm system still has to track onto the West Coast and then across the entire U.S. We'll get better model data as the storm moves over land.

Severe Weather Team 11
 
Stephen Cropper
 
Scott Harbaugh
 
Kevin Benson
 
Danielle Dozier
 
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