Winds up to 40 mph knocked out power to many in the region on Wednesday.

While things appear to have settled down for the time being, periods of freezing rain are expected early Friday.

A winter weather advisory is in effect from 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. Friday, with total ice accumulations of up to a tenth of an inch possible.

“The general flavor of the day was like 30 to 40 mph gusts,” said Renee Duff, AccuWeather meteorologist.

“There was a pretty strong cold front that came through that generated those gusty winds.”

Duff noted that’s kind of been the pattern since the past weekend, where we’ve had very quick hitting cold fronts coming down from Canada.

Cold Spring Road in West Penn Township was closed due to a tree and power lines down across the roadway.

The incident occurred around 1 p.m. when heavy winds felled a tree and a power line causing an area power outage.

The West Penn fire company responded to the 500 block about two miles south of Route 443 and closed the roadway.

As of 8:30 a.m., there were 590 PPL customers without power.

Of those, the majority were in Northampton County, where there were 114 without power, including 110 in Moore Township, and four in Allen Township.

There were 59 in Carbon County, including 41 in Towamensing Township, and 18 in Kidder Township.

In Monroe County, there were six customers out, including three in Jackson Township, two in Hamilton Township, and one in Eldred Township.

Jane George, Regional Affairs Director, PPL, said crews were hard at work to restore power to its subscribers.

“A system of isolated snow showers and high winds moved through our area Wednesday and into the overnight hours on Thursday, causing outages for some customers,” George said. “We have activated our storm response plans to respond as quickly (and) as safely as possible to restore power to these customers.

George said the response plan includes the following:

• Activating storm teams with additional personnel in the field, control centers and customer service centers across our 29-county service territory.

• Implementing 16-hour shifts for round-the-clock coverage.

• Bringing in additional lineworkers from outside the company to assist in restoration efforts.

“Our crews will continue to work diligently until all customers are restored,” she said. “We remind customers if they are experiencing an outage to stay connected.”

• Report power outages online at pplelectric.com or text “Outage” to TXTPPL (898775).

• Sign up for alerts to stay connected and receive outage updates at pplelectric.com/alerts.

• Check the status of an outage and estimated restoration times online at pplelectric.com/outage.

• For information on storm safety, outage restoration priorities and more, visit pplelectric.com/outage.

Duff said today is expected to be fairly clear, with periods of sunshine and highs reaching close to 40 degrees and winds much less mainly this afternoon.

Conditions are expected to cloud up this evening, she said, with some rain starting late in the evening.

Before dawn Friday morning, there is some potential for some snow showers to freeze on untreated surfaces like ridge tops or shady spots, Duff said.

However, she said the bulk of the storm on Friday is expected to be periods of rain throughout the day and temperatures around 40.

Duff said it will turn windier and colder on Saturday, with gusty winds that could reach 20 to 30 mph.