CLEVELAND — Friday marks the start of the first major lake-effect snowstorm of the season, with snow expected over the next few days in the snow belt covering Lake, Ashtabula and Geauga counties with several feet of snow expected in the coming days.

Here’s the latest from News 5 Chief Meteorologist Mark Johnson:

Winter weather update Friday evening

Monitoring and warnings

• There is a lake effect snow warning for Lake, Ashtabula and Geauga counties until 10 a.m. Saturday.
• A winter weather advisory is in effect for Cuyahoga County until 10 a.m. Saturday.

Heavy snow squalls will settle into parts of the warning zone tonight. Heavy snowfall, one to two inches per hour, is likely where the snow band persists.
Accumulations in the heaviest band will reach between 12 and 20 inches this evening alone!

Traveling along the I-90 corridor through Lake and Ashtabula counties is very perilous. Motorists should prepare for dangerous road conditions during squalls.

I-90 is closed just across the state line in Erie County, Pennsylvania.

What does it look like there?

Here’s a look at the snowfall in North Kingsville Friday evening.

Debbie Braden

US Route 2 in Mentor Friday afternoon.

US Route 2 to Mentor

In Willowick, motorists are experiencing near whiteout conditions.

Snow in Willowick

Full forecast

CLICK HERE to read the latest forecasts from our meteorologists.

Parking bans

Some cities in Northeast Ohio have issued parking bans as a precaution.

• Richmond Heights will be subject to a parking ban until 11 p.m. Sunday. Vehicles are prohibited from parking on the streets.
• Mentor: A parking ban will be in effect until further notice. No parking is permitted on city streets.

Power outages

Visit our Power outage page to find links to view current power outages in Northeast Ohio and to report a power outage.

Impacts on traffic

Check out our Traffic map News 5 to see road closures or delays due to weather or weather-related accidents.

Send us photos, videos and weather reports

Please stay safe: Do not put yourself in danger to take a photo or video of extreme weather conditions. You can send photos and short videos to [email protected], and reports and storm information to [email protected].

You can also submit information to us via the form on our Contact us page here. For files larger than 10MB, please use a file sharing service like DropBox or WeTransfer.

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