AL Diaz, Associated Press Waves crash along the shore in the North Bay Village area of Miami during Hurricane Wilma. Click photo for larger image.

One short week ago, Pennsylvania was bathed in benign, 60- to 70-degree autumn bliss.

Last night, winter barged in, a good two months early.

Parts of the state were expected to be in the throes of a sudden wintry storm today bringing several inches of wet snow, blustery winds and the likelihood of power outages.

Weather gazers yesterday took the measure of Hurricane Wilma, former tropical storm Alpha and a developing upper-level storm system over West Virginia, and hastily sounded the alarm for much of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

"Superstorm 2005 to Slam Northeast," warned an advisory form AccuWeather, the State College, Pa.-based forecast service.

Soon thereafter, the National Weather Service posted winter storm warnings for 12 counties in central and north central Pennsylvania, including Somerset, Cambria, Clearfield and northern Centre, starting at 8 p.m. yesterday and continuing into tonight.

The weather service said 6 to 9 inches of snow could fall in higher elevations, and warned that it would be the heavy, wet type that brings down tree limbs and power lines.

A winter weather advisory was posted for elevations higher than 2,000 feet in Westmoreland and Fayette counties and parts of West Virginia and western Maryland, with 2 to 5 inches of wet snow forecast in those places.

Both weather services gave Pittsburgh a pass from the worst of it. Today was expected to be much like yesterday -- mostly dreary, with a high in the low 40s, persistent rain and winds of 9 to 15 mph.

"I think you guys will see some wet snowflakes mixing in from time to time [today and tonight]," said Alex Sosnowski, senior expert meteorologist for AccuWeather. "Nothing that will stick."

AccuWeather said Superstorm 2005 would bring "destructive winds, driving rain and snow and severe flooding."

"Some locations in the highest elevations of West Virginia and across southern New York state and New England will receive in excess of a foot of snow ... There also is the potential for extensive wind damage. Wind will gust to 70 mph in coastal southern New England, 60 mph along the New Jersey coast and in Boston [and] 50 mph in New York City," it said.

"This is really going to end up hammering the Northeast with copious amounts of rain and high winds," Mr. Sosnowski said. With the ground already saturated in New England, as little as 1 to 3 inches of rain will bring serious flooding.