While it won’t quite go down as a blockbuster storm, Wednesday’s nor’easter dumped plenty of snow in our area.

Homeowners were out cleaning Thursday morning, shoveling out their vehicles and using snowblowers to clean their pavements.

Clarence Muffley, of 227 S. Fourth St. in Lehighton, was among them.

“It’s getting people out with all that’s going on with the pandemic,” Muffley said. “I think it’s good.”

In Carbon County, Jim Thorpe received about a foot of snow; whereas Nesquehoning got about a little over a foot, while drifts of up to 36 inches were reported in Summit Hill.

In Monroe County, most areas received about 11.5 inches.

“I’m going to guess a lot of people picked up a foot of snow,” Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, said. “There were bands of heavy snow with the storm and some places picked up more, and also there were some places that picked up less.”

Though it wasn’t as crippling in our area as it was in other parts of Pennsylvania as well as in New York, “I think just about everywhere in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, it’s living up to its potential, and in some cases, exceeding it,” Kines said.

On the road

Crews remained busy clearing major roadways, and were prepared to tackle secondary roadways as the day wore on, according to Sean Brown, safety press officer for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

“We currently still have many of our interstates, expressways restricted to commercial vehicles,” Brown said. “The only commercial vehicles that are allowed are freight tractor trailers with chains or traction control devices, which was implemented yesterday.”

Now that the storm has subsided, Brown said crews are able to clean up.

“The main thoroughfares, expressways, get the highest amount of attention during a heavy snow,” he said. “We do get all of our state roadways, (and now) we have to get our secondary and smaller scale roadways.”

Brown said crews have been out, and added, “they will be out there until all the roads are cleared up. Our crews are getting ahead of it to be able to get out there and plow all the roads.

“During a storm, our goal is to keep the roads passable; they’re never going to be clear while the snow is coming down. Now that the storm is over, we’re able to clear the roads of snow.”

Brown said that while there were a few crashes in the Lehigh Valley, he believes the timing of the storm helped reduce the number of incidents.

A tractor-trailer jackknifed in the Packerton Dip, but the scanner was mostly quiet through the storm.

“I think overnight typically helps when there aren’t vehicles on the roadway; our number one advice is always to avoid travel,” he said. “It really helps our plow drivers to do their job, so that’s always helpful.”

Brown said that in storms such as this, it’s imperative for motorists to try to avoid travel whenever possible.

“We really do need our motorists to be our partners,” he said. “If they can delay any travel to give more time to our guys out there to get things clear, it would be helpful.”

With cleanup from the storm in full swing, Kines said we can expect some sunshine as the day wears on.

“The next few days are going to be pretty chilly, (and) for the most part, a little freezing,” he said. “There’s not going to be a lot of melting going on.”

No matter how anxious we are to clean up, Kines said it’s important not to overdo things.

“When you’re out shoveling, just take it easy, listen to your body, and do what you can do,” he said. “Be careful about the next few days; there’s not going to be much, if any, melting, (and) at night with temperatures getting down quite a bit below freezing, you got to worry about icy spots.”

Kines noted that while it will remain that way for the next several days, there is some good news on the horizon.

“There’s no big storms in our near feature,” he said.

Kines said there’s going to be a weak system crossing the area over the weekend, and there may be some snow showers Saturday into Sunday, with the worst case resulting in about an inch of snow.

“When you’ve got a foot, an inch is nothing,” he quipped. “We can handle that.”