Rain, snow, sleet and temperatures around 40 degrees will make for an unpleasant, but probably not alarming, weekend of weather, meteorologists predicted yesterday.

A storm that dumped 6 inches of snow in Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas was expected to head northeast yesterday and today.

"There's potential for snow in the Pittsburgh area," said Bob Smerbeck, an Accuweather meteorologist. "It's going to be a close call. We're going to be on the back edge and it's going to be right on the edge of rain and snow."

City Public Works Director Guy Costa said he pulled crews from street cleaning and pothole patching yesterday to put plows and spreaders on trucks "to play it safe" in case of heavy snow this weekend. Mr. Costa said the forecasts he's heard call for anywhere from half an inch to a foot of snow.

"We're going to get some type of precipitation this weekend. We just don't know how much. So we're playing it safe by putting plows and spreaders on trucks," he said.

Mr. Costa said the city has ample supplies of rock salt available if it does snow.

Saturday morning should be dry, but trout fishermen be warned: The clouds are expected to thicken and rain will begin falling at around midday, Mr. Smerbeck said. By the evening, the rain could change to snow.

A combination of rain and snow is expected for Sunday.

"On Monday, we're still going to have some snow and rain, gusty winds," he said. Depending on their elevation, some areas might pick up a coating to an inch of snow, while others get a little more. The Laurel Highlands could be blanketed with 3 to 6 inches.

National Weather Service meteorologist John Darnley expected similar conditions.

The forecast includes "a wintry mix, maybe starting off as rain changing over to snow and then maybe going back to sleet," he said. Temperatures will top out around 40 and it might be windy.

Weather experts are evaluating different models to firm up their predictions, but yesterday they were not anticipating heavy snows.

"More like April nuisance-type weather where you can't really enjoy the gardening," Mr. Darnley said. "It's hard to get outside when it's cloudy and wet and windy."

And for some plants, it's dangerous. Flowers are at risk of dying when the temperature dips below 32 degrees.

"This is really messing everything up," said Susie Lobdell, owner of Flower Pots Nursery in Eighty Four, Pa. "We're losing a lot of flowers."

She said tulips, daffodils, Bradford pears, weeping cherries and hyacinths are among the most vulnerable. After the weekend's wintry mix, the bloom cycle for these flowers will be over.

Although it is too late to save the early spring bloomers, Ms. Lobdell said there are ways to salvage unopened buds from a freeze.

She suggested two methods of protection: spraying buds with cold water or covering them with a burlap sack. While cold temperatures and snow can harm flowers, "it's that freeze that we get that destroys things," Ms. Lobdell said, gardening with a crew garbed in thermal underwear and heavy coats.

Weather woes are "really backing the gardening season up two or three weeks now," she added. "You just have to work through it."

Ms. Lobdell suggested planting pansies, which usually bloom in late spring and come in all colors, to make up for the lost flower arrangements.

Meanwhile, meteorologists are keeping an eye on how weather patterns are evolving.

If the storm tracked westward and picked up strength, then "you could get into the heavy snow thumping," Mr. Smerbeck said. "But that's not the most likely scenario we see right now."