The Northeast’s first “significant” winter storm of the season was expected to bring a messy mix of rain, snow and sleet along the Interstate 95 corridor starting late Friday night, the National Weather Service said.

The weather service said Thursday it was still too early to determine the exact track of the storm, but some areas could expect up to 7 inches or more of snow.

The storm should arrive in the Philadelphia region Friday night and dump “several inches” of snow before turning to rain sometime Saturday, the weather service said. It will travel up the Eastern seaboard and eventually move out to sea off New England by early Sunday.

Meteorologist Bill Simpson of the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts, said the storm could drop half a foot of heavy, wet snow in parts of northern and eastern Connecticut, including about 3 to 5 inches in the Hartford area.

Temperatures will be close to freezing, making it difficult to predict exactly which areas are likely to receive more rain than snow, Simpson said.

Baltimore and Washington were expected to get only rain as temperatures hover just below freezing, forecasters said.

(AP)