A cold front moved into the area last night, but most motorists should miss the snow showers if they leave early enough for their holiday plans, said Tom Mazza, meteorologist with the Charleston, W.

Friday, December 31, 1999

A cold front moved into the area last night, but most motorists should miss the snow showers if they leave early enough for their holiday plans, said Tom Mazza, meteorologist with the Charleston, W.Va., bureau of the National Weather Service.

"For the new millennium, we have a cold front coming through," Mazza said. "And it will be the last cold front of the millennium."

The cold front will deliver up some rain, Mazza said.

"We’ll have rain and snow showers New Year’s Eve, but should have a dry New Year’s Eve evening," he said. "But it really depends on where you’re going."

Traveling through the mountains or east is not suggested, Mazza said.

"You could run into some snow showers Friday," he said. "The only problems we see for New Year’s Eve are in the east or in the mountains."

Any snow that arrives won’t be in the form of a blizzard, however, which makes even mountainous driving less dangerous, Mazza added.

"There’s not a major storm coming through," he said. "It’s just a front."

And that front will be on its way out Saturday morning, leaving the area with a nice New Year’s Day.

If traveling back home, though, motorists might start out a little early Sunday, Mazza added.

"Sunday looks a little milder, but with increasing cloudiness," he said. "You’ll have some possibility of rain coming in later in the day."

And depending on the location, the rain could freeze, Mazza said.

"There may be some freezing rain setting up across northern Ohio, maybe in the Michigan area," he said.

If the unexpected does occur, however, Ohio Department of Transportation officials are ready to handle it, said Holly Snedecor-Gray, ODOT District 9, public information officer.

"We are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, holidays included," Mrs. Snedecor-Gray said. "Our crews are prepared and ready to work New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day if we were to receive any snow."

At the first spotting of icy roads, ODOT garages are called by Ohio Highway Patrol troopers, Mrs. Snedecor-Gray said.

"That’s when they start calling the crews out," she said. "It could be in the middle of the night. We respond at all times of the day and night. If it’s during the day, we just call the crews off their routine maintenance projects."