The worst storm of the winter so far turned out to be a messy mix of rain, freezing rain, ice, and in the highest elevations, even snow.
The precipitation also caused flooding of creeks and rivers in some areas of western Pennsylvania.
Locally, residents kept an eye on the Little Juniata. The river flooded its banks in September after the heavy rains brought on by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan. The rains from Wednesday and Thursday, although heavy at times, did not reach the September levels and neither did the river. Flood stage on the Little Juniata is eight feet at Spruce Creek, yesterday the river crested below flood stage at around 7.3 feet, according to information on a National Weather Service web site.
The Juniata River stayed well below flood stage of 12 feet. It peeked yesterday at Huntingdon at 9.3 feet.
A slushy frozen snow was reported in Bellwood early yesterday morning, heavy rains were observed during the mid-morning in Tyrone and the ice covering the trees in the higher elevations surrounding Northern Blair communities could be seen for miles around.
The biggest problem residents had to contend with yesterday were road closures due to downed power lines and trees and some flooding.
Blair County’s Department of Emergency Management and PennDOT reported several roads had to be closed in the area. The list included Route 865 from Bellwood to Blandburg, Skelp Mountain Road, Route 350 from Bald Eagle to Centre County towards Philipsburg and Janesville Pike.
Yesterday afternoon, motorists traveling north on Janesville Pike saw conditions turn nasty a little more than two miles north of the Tyrone Borough line. Trees and branches were observed down and motorists had to cross into the opposite lane of traffic to continue travel. The tree branches could be heard cracking under the weight of the ice around 1:30 yesterday afternoon. In at least one case, downed branches almost covered both lanes. Motorists on the road reported what they had observed to officials and the road was closed.
Some of the roads remained closed as of this morning according to radio and television reports.
Information released from PennDOT also showed road closures due to flooding at Route 453 near Grier School and near the Tipton Reservoir off Interstate 99.
The storm also caused power outages with the most severe problems in areas such as Philipsburg, Clearfield and Dubois. A release from Penelec said at the height of the outages, 77,000 customers were affected. The release indicated some those in the hardest hit areas might not have full restoration until Saturday. Thousands of Allegheny Power customers were also affected. Shelters were set up in Philipsburg and Port Matilda.
In Blair county, the power outages were much less severe, but some were reported. Cable, internet and phone customers were also affected by the storm.
Tyrone Area School District students were dismissed early yesterday and some school sporting events were postponed Wednesday and Thursday due to the storm.
