PDT Staff Writer

The National Weather Service in Wilmington on Sunday updated the winter storm watch originally expected to hit southern Ohio today.

On Saturday, the NWS predicted cold air from the north could mix with moisture from the south, causing freezing rain and sleet beginning by 1 p.m. today - followed by heavy snow in the evening, and through tomorrow evening.

On Sunday, the NWS said while we are still under a winter storm watch, the watch has been pushed back from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., and now expected to last all through Tuesday night.

“The beginning of the system has slowed down a bit, but there's still enough uncertainty that we're not positive enough to issue a warning,” said a spokesperson at the NWS.

The initial predictions were snowfall of 4 to 6 inches, or greater, but with the precipitation being pushed back that could affect our accumulation.

According to the NWS, the area still could expect up to four inches with perhaps a half-inch of ice.

Meanwhile, in New York, the snow got even deeper Sunday but the end was in sight after a weeklong series of squalls that have buried towns on one corner of Lake Ontario.

By early Sunday, the persistent streams of squalls fueled by moisture from the lake had piled snow 115 inches deep at the Oswego County town of Parish, about 25 miles northeast of Syracuse.

But as efforts to dig out Parish and surrounding towns was ramping up, the weather system was winding down.

The squalls shifted northward to the Watertown area Sunday morning, and were expected to die down before drifting back to the south again, said meteorologist Steve McLaughlin at the National Weather Service in Buffalo.

“We have a sharp front coming in Monday that's going to kick all this out. We may get one more burst of snow, but then it's over. Finally, some mercy,” McLaughlin said.

More than a week of bitter cold and slippery roads have contributed to at least 25 deaths across the northeastern quarter of the nation - five in Ohio, four in Illinois, four in Indiana, two in Kentucky, seven in Michigan, and one each in Wisconsin, and Maryland and elsewhere in New York, authorities said.

The ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this story. RYAN SCOTT OTTNEY can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 235.