Major winter storm for Pennsylvania Wednesday into Thursday

• Kristine Allen/WPSU
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Kristine Allen is Program Director of WPSU-FM. She also files feature stories for WPSU on the arts, culture, science, and more. When she's not at WPSU, Kris enjoys playing folk fiddle, acting, singing and portrait-sketching. She is also a self-confessed "science geek." Kris started working in public radio in college, at age 17, and says she "just couldn't stop."

Editor’s note: This story was published on Dec. 15, 2020, and the storm has passed.

---

(State College) – Pennsylvania is in for its first major snowstorm of the season Wednesday. The National Weather Service in State College has issued winter storm warnings for almost the entire state.

“The worst of the storm is actually going to be Wednesday night into early Thursday morning,” said Marisa Ferger, a meteorologist at Penn State. “It’s going to make for some very dangerous travel. So if you do have to drive, I would suggest doing it earlier in the day because it is going to be falling very fast and very hard.”

The snowstorm will affect almost all of the state, including all of central Pennsylvania, with snowfall predictions of up to 24 inches in many counties.

“The bullseye for this storm right now looks like it’s going to be east of interstate I-99, north of the turnpike, west of I-81,” Ferger says.

What’s the latest snowfall forecast for your area? Take a look! Much of central Pennsylvania is forecast to get at least a foot of snow. Another interesting tidbit is that much of Pennsylvania has a 100% chance of receiving 6 inches or more of snow. #PAwx pic.twitter.com/68Aie2YgqB

— NWS State College (@NWSStateCollege) December 15, 2020

But snowfall could reach a foot or more in a vast swath of Pennsylvania. State College, for example, could see a year’s worth of snow in one day.

“Last year, State College, for the entire season, only saw 13.2 inches of snow,” Ferger says. “We have a chance of beating an entire season’s worth of snow with this one storm.”

And that just might set a record. The biggest single-day December snowfall for State College was 12.5 inches, back in 1992.