Winter snow blanketed Jefferson County for the first time this season, as rain turned into snow Thursday afternoon. Heavy, wet flakes began falling across the area in the early afternoon hours and quickly accumulated on streets, trees and grassy surfaces, making travel treacherous. Snow totals in the area were fairly significant, with some areas of Jefferson County posting 3 inches of accumulation and localized higher amounts.  Trees, already saturated to the root by the torrential rains earlier in the week, had difficulty sustaining the extra weight from the heavy snow, causing many to topple and resulting in power outages across the County. Mitch Cain, of Appalachian Electric, stated that around 9200 customers were without power due to the Winter event. 14 crews worked through the night to restore power but faced continual outages from trees falling into, or pressing on, power lines. Late Friday afternoon, Cain reported that nearly 600 customers were without power and some of those outages came on Friday, as the melt began across the region. Repairs were slow going due to the nature of the outages. Large substations that handle many customers are often a faster repair than outages that are caused from interference from trees or branches that may affect a handful of customers per location. In addition, several poles had to be reset due to breakage. Crews were expected to spend another night outdoors, locating downed lines and making repairs. In addition to battling long hours, a cold blast moved into the area on Thursday night, causing temperatures to fall into the mid 20s locally. Friday brought some sunshine to the County for the first time in several days, though the temperatures only reached into the 40s, and some melting occurred. Below freezing temperatures on Friday night allowed refreezing and it was not until a warming trend on Saturday that Jefferson County found any real relief from Thursday’s Winter event. The reprise may be short lived, however, as weather forecasts are predicting the coldest air of 2013 to make its way into the region early this week.