Jan. 14—High winds led to downed trees and widespread power outages across eastern Pennsylvania on Sunday afternoon, after snow squalls moved across the region earlier.

A wind advisory from the National Weather Service expired at 5 p.m., and the wind will die down as the evening goes on. During the afternoon, winders were between 20 and 30 mph, with gusts up to 40 to 50 mph, according to the weather service.

PECO reported just over 10,000 outages late Sunday afternoon across its service area in the Philadelphia region. The bulk of those — nearly 7,500 — were in Chester County.

In Berks County, more than 5,000 Met-Ed and PPL customers were without power as of 2:30 p.m., with Met-Ed having the bulk of those outages.

While the wind lingered, the threat of snow squalls passed quickly. Earlier Sunday, the weather service warned that “dangerous” squalls capable of causing near-whiteout conditions were moving across eastern Pennsylvania.

One snow squall warning that included northern Montgomery and Bucks counties expired at 11:45 a.m. A separate warning that included Montgomery and southeastern Berks counties expired at 12:30 p.m.

Intense bursts of heavy snow and wind gusts greater than 35 mph were produced by those squalls, which led to rapidly falling visibility, according to the weather service.

As the squalls moved across Pennsylvania on Sunday morning, whiteout conditions were reported across western and central portions of the state.

The weather service’s State College forecast office shared side-by-side photos from a PennDOT traffic camera, taken just 4 minutes apart, showing Interstate 80 in Clearfield County going from completely passable to snow-covered amid whitehout conditions.

Next storm

Looking ahead to the coastal storm expected to impact the region early this week, it’s no longer shaping up to be the blockbuster that some forecasting models were projecting just days ago. A rapid strengthening of the storm that would have led to higher snowfall totals is no longer expected.

“A widespread significant 6+ inch snowfall event is not anticipated based on latest guidance,” according to the forecast discussion from the weather service’s Mount Holly, N.J., office.

However, the region won’t go unscathed, and snow is now a near certainty for any precipitation that moves into our region, as the system will have enough cold air available, according to the forecast discussion.

The snow will likely start late Monday night, earlier than expected, and continue into Tuesday.

A 1- to 3-inch snowfall over most of the region is the likely outcome, according to the forecast discussion. However, the Lehigh Valley could be in the higher end of that range.

The weather service’s snowfall projection map released late Sunday afternoon shows most of Lehigh and Northampton counties expected to receive 3 to 4 inches of snow. Portions of eastern and northern Northampton counties could see slightly lower accumulation.