Colder conditions are moving in following a relatively mild Thanksgiving in Butler County.

Meteorologists warn that an eastward-moving cold front could create hazardous road conditions on untreated surfaces for those heading home after the holiday, but that the weather is nothing unusual.

“I think we're pretty seasonal,” said Pat Herald, meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Pittsburgh. “We had a couple hard freezes earlier in the month, almost a week of hard freezes earlier in November, so this stuff is all on schedule.”

Outlook for the weekend

Low temperatures overnight Friday were predicted to fall to 24 degrees and it was expected to be windy.

Saturday is expected to see slightly warmer temperatures, with a high of 37 degrees and an overnight low of 27 degrees. Daytime Saturday is predicted to be dryer and partly sunny, while snow showers are predicted overnight with a 70% chance of precipitation.

“(Saturday) is going to be a pretty good travel day,” Herald said. “It's going to dry up a bit. Saturday night, there is a potential for a little bit of light snow coming across, and Sunday morning you can expect more snow showers around. People headed home then should be careful.”

Rain and snow showers are predicted during the day on Sunday, with a high around 38 degrees and an overnight low around 25 degrees.

“We're not looking at any advisory, but that light accumulation on surfaces could have local hazardous conditions on anything that's untreated,” Herald said. “This time of year, untreated surfaces do become hazardous, but we do live in Pennsylvania.”

Preparing for winter

Herald said that moving forward into December, snow showers like this are likely to be the norm.

“This time of year, you need to be wrapping up your wintertime preps,” he said. “Get your snow tires on if that's what you do, all-season radials, whatever you do. The chance of accumulating snow is just going to increase. The good news is, PennDOT is pretty good about pretreating roads.”

Bridget Morrow with the state Department of Transportation District 10 office said that PennDOT workers are already preparing Butler County roadways for colder weather.

“They've already been out pretreating the entire county, and it looks good,” she said. “The roads are alright. They're out, they're patrolling the roads, and they're treating as necessary. Everything's good, everything's dry, no complaints.”