The snow is coming.
Pittsburghers could wake up Monday morning to 9 to 14 inches of the white stuff — the largest single-day total in more than a decade — after a massive storm stomps its way from Albuquerque, N.M., to Maine’s Atlantic shores this weekend.
Winter-weather warnings Saturday morning already covered the better part of 2,200 miles — a giant swath of the nation “that’s the better part of 25 states,” said Andrew Kienzle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Moon.
Saturday started at -2 degrees near Pittsburgh International Airport. Forecasters don’t expect the region to crawl above the freezing mark for at least seven days — maybe more.
The first snowflakes will fall Saturday night, after sundown — but the heaviest snow is expected from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, Kienzle said; at its peak, the storm could drop 1 to 1½ inches of snow an hour.
“It’s gonna be virtually impossible to keep all the roads clear,” Kienzle told TribLive. “We can’t explicitly tell people what to do. But, if you can postpone travel, please do. It’s going to be rough out there.”
Snowfall is expected to grow more intermittent and taper off Monday.
Municipalities this weekend braced for the worst.
Pittsburgh will enter the storm with an arsenal of 8,000 tons of road salt. PennDOT is sharing resources with smaller communities — state officials, for example, have agreed to share 200 tons of road salt with Plum.
Road crews also are at the ready. About 75 trucks with plows and salt spreaders are in operation Saturday in Pittsburgh, Mayor Corey O’Connor said. About 40 trucks are currently out of commission, a problem the city often encounters as it struggles to update an old and breakdown-prone fleet.
An additional 19 trucks are available that have either a plow or a salt spreader, but not both, the mayor said.
The Pennsylania Department of Transportation is set to close HOV lanes on Interstates 279 and 579 in Allegheny County at 11 a.m. Saturday.
At 12:01 a.m. Sunday, the state will bar commercial vehicles from driving on all interstate highways, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I-79, the Parkway East and Parkway West, and sections of Routes 28 and 33, U.S. 15, and U.S. 22.
As frigid temperatures Saturday morning started bringing activity throughout the region to a crawl, flight delays were reported at Pittsburgh International Airport. Between 5 and 9 a.m., at least 15 flights were delayed and three cancelled, according to the airport’s website.
More on the coming storm
• What’s canceled, rescheduled because of impending snowstorm
• Road restrictions expand across Pennsylvania as forecasters warn of dangerous winter storm
• Hospitals, ambulance services brace for snow set to blanket Western Pa.
Many even were discouraged from attending religious services. The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh’s Bishop Mark Eckman “granted a dispensation” for followers to stay home and skip Sunday mass. Service schedules were limited.
“The Diocese urges parishioners to place safety first in considering weekend travel,” the group said in a Friday statement. “No one should place themselves or others at risk due to dangerous weather.”
The last time the Pittsburgh area experienced 9 inches of snowfall, for example, was in December 2020, he said. Pittsburgh hasn’t been pummeled with 10 inches or more since February 2010.
While much of the region expects 9 to 14 inches of snow, totals could hit 16 inches in ridges in Westmoreland and Fayette counties, said Kienzle, the National Weather Service meteorologist.
Pittsburgh will face about 30 to 36 hours of snowfall in the coming days, he added. There are “early indications” that snow squalls and “banded snow showers” will heavily restrict visibility Monday on area roads.
Saturday’s high won’t reach much above the mid-teens, with temperatures Saturday night expected to linger around 10 degrees, Kienzle said. Sunday’s highs are in the mid-20s.
“Despite the fact that the thermometers says it’s in the mid-20s, with that wind chilld, it’s not going to be good,” Kienzle said. “It’s going to be miserably cold. And it’s going to feel miserably cold.”