A wintry mix of precipitation was expected to cause hazardous travel conditions and the potential for localized power outages Thursday night into Friday morning in Centre County.
The National Weather Service at State College issued a winter weather advisory for the county from 7 p.m. Thursday to 10 a.m. Friday.
AccuWeather senior meteorologist Paul Walker said he expected the precipitation to start as snow and sleet, with accumulations of a coating to an inch in southern Centre County, including the State College area, and 1 to 3 inches in the northern part of the county.
Sleet would change over to freezing rain later Thursday night into Friday morning. Slippery road conditions were anticipated through the Friday morning commute.
“Streets are going to become a sheet of ice,” Walker said. “I know they’re pre-treating the roads but there’s still still sleet falling down and then the freezing rain can make things quite slippery. The freezing rain will continue into the morning hours. It could be a pretty slippery commute tomorrow morning.”
Depending on how much freezing rain the area sees, ice accumulations could result in downed tree branches on power lines and cause some localized outages.
“Places where the freezing rain lasts longer it could be more widespread,” Walker said.
A bit of rain could follow before the storm passes on Friday and temperatures climb to a high of 38 degrees.
But Walker recommended making sure sidewalks are clear before temperatures fall again on Friday night, with a low of 20 degrees in the forecast.
“You’ll want to get this stuff cleared off later tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “It will be getting quite cold tomorrow night so everything will freeze up that’s left on the sidewalks and the roadways.”
• Penn State has canceled in-person classes and activities from 10 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Friday. Only employees performing essential duties to maintain campus operations should report.
A “midnight clear” for snow and ice removal is in effect on campus from midnight through 7 a.m. Friday. Parking will be prohibited at all faculty/staff surface parking lots on campus, including Innovation Park, during that time. The roof levels of all five campus parking decks closed at 7 p.m. on Thursday.
• State College Area School District is closed on Friday. The Board of Directors Conversation with the Community scheduled for has been rescheduled for 9 a.m. on March 4 at Good Day Cafe.
• Bald Eagle, Bellefonte and Penns Valley area school districts will have flexible instruction days on Friday.
• All locations of Penn State Health-State College will be closed until noon on Friday, February 25th until noon. Patients should contact their providers office for a virtual appointment or to reschedule. Visit pshcc.org/locations for contact information.
• Centre Volunteers in Medicine will open at noon on Friday.
• The Centre Area Transportation Authority will operate on its Full Service Lite schedule on Friday. The NE, VE, WE, RC, and HU routes will not operate. The CATA customer service center will open at noon.
• The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is planning to implement Tier 1 restrictions on roads around the commonwealth Thursday evening, including all of Interstate 99 beginning at 7 p.m. and Interstate 80 beginning at 10 p.m.
Tier 1 restrictions prohibit tractors without trailers or towing unloaded or lightly loaded trailers, passenger vehicles towing trailers, RVs, buses and motorcycles.
Motorists can check 511pa.com for the latest road conditions.
