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The following announcement has been posted on thedailynewsonline.com:

DUE TO STORM: Some subscribers may receive Monday's paper with Tuesday's edition

If your job requires a commute to either Rochester or Buffalo, you might want to call your boss now and tell him or her you won't make it into work today.  That big project you're working on? It will just have to wait.

The Thruway is closed in both directions from from Rochester to Erie, Pa., according to the Thruway Authority web site.  Those are exits 46 to 61.

We have no information on alternative routes at this time, but if the Thruway is closed ... 

UPDATE: 6:24 a.m.: WBTA has more on closings and cancellations.

UPDATE: 6:49 a.m.: Here's the latest weather statement from the National Weather Service:

... SLOW TRAVEL ACROSS THE NIAGARA FRONTIER THIS MORNING...

WHILE THE HEAVY LAKE SNOWS HAVE PUSHED SOUTH... THERE WILL STILL BE AREAS OF REDUCED VISIBILITIES FROM BLOWING SNOW EARLY THIS MORNING. THIS WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY SOME OCCASIONAL LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS... ESPECIALLY ACROSS ORLEANS AND GENESEE COUNTIES WHERE MORE WIDESPREAD LAKE ONTARIO GENERATED SNOWS WILL BE FOUND.

TEMPERATURES EARLY THIS MORNING WILL BE CLOSE TO 10 DEGREES...

WITH GUSTY WEST WINDS OF 15 TO 30 MPH PRODUCING WIND CHILL VALUES CLOSE TO 10 BELOW ZERO. MOTORISTS SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR SNOW COVERED ROADS AND A LONGER COMMUTE TIME.

ANYONE HEADING OUTDOORS SHOULD ALSO BE DRESSED FOR THE SUB ZERO WIND CHILLS BY COVERING AS MUCH EXPOSED SKIN AS POSSIBLE. DRESSING IN LAYERS IS ALSO SUGGESTED.

Lake Effect Snow is coming.

The predicted storm is significant enough for the National Weather Service to issue the ominous warning that travel between 1 p.m. Sunday and 7 a.m. Monday may be impossible.

Meanwhile, the late Saturday, Sunday morning weather "watch" has been downgraded to an advisory.  That's small comfort compared to the dire language of the NWS warning:

SNOW WILL DEVELOP FROM WEST TO EAST ACROSS THE REGION LATE TONIGHT... WITH THE STEADIEST SNOWFALL EXPECTED SUNDAY MORNING INTO THE EARLY AFTERNOON. THE SNOW SUNDAY AFTERNOON WILL BECOME LAKE ENHANCED AND BE ACCOMPANIED BY STRONG SOUTHWEST WINDS... WHICH COULD GUST WELL OVER 40 MPH. THIS WILL PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW WITH FREQUENT WHITEOUTS. THERE COULD EVEN BE SOME MINOR WIND DAMAGE.

and

A DOUBLE BARRELED LOW STRETCHING FROM THE UPPER GREAT LAKES TO THE OHIO VALLEY SATURDAY EVENING WILL GRADUALLY WORK ACROSS OUR REGION BEGINNING AFTER 3 OR 4 AM IN THE WEST AND ABOUT DAYBREAK FOR THE EASTERN LAKE ONTARIO COUNTIES. THIS WILL RESULT IN ANOTHER ROUND OF ACCUMULATING SNOW FOR THE ENTIRE REGION WITH THE HEAVIEST AMOUNTS ACROSS THE EASTERN LAKE ONTARIO COUNTIES.

BY FAR THOUGH... THE BIGGEST IMPACT FROM THIS SYSTEM WILL BE STRONG WINDS ON THE BACK SIDE OF THIS LOW. ANY SNOW THAT DOES FALL WILL BE BLOWN AROUND WITH SIGNIFICANT DRIFTING... CAUSING FREQUENT WHITEOUTS. THE WORST AREAS WILL BE EAST OF THE LAKES WHERE LOCALIZED BLIZZARD CONDITIONS CAN BE EXPECTED.

My hope: Things clear up enough by Monday afternoon for my wife's flight from California to safely arrive at ROC.

Be safe, stay warm and pray for the safety of those people who have no choice but to brave the elements on our behalf.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for Sunday.

"Watch" is a little more manageable than the "warning" level issued prior to the storm that hit Genesee County yesterday.  That storm dumped as much as 12 inches of snow on parts of the region.

But that doesn't mean there won't be significant accumulations of snow through Sunday night (starting tonight).

SNOW WILL DEVELOP FROM WEST TO EAST ACROSS THE REGION LATE SATURDAY NIGHT... WITH THE STEADIEST SNOWFALL EXPECTED SUNDAY MORNING INTO THE EARLY AFTERNOON. THE SNOW SUNDAY AFTERNOON WILL THEN BE ACCOMPANIED BY STRONG SOUTHWEST WINDS... WHICH COULD GUST TO BETWEEN 30 AND 40 MPH. THIS WILL PRODUCE AREAS OF BLOWING SNOW WITH GREATLY REDUCED VISIBILITIES AND THERE COULD EVEN BE THE CHANCE FOR HIGHER GUSTS WHICH COULD PRODUCE MINOR WIND DAMAGE.

WHILE THERE WILL BE THE POTENTIAL FOR SNOWFALL IN EXCESS OF 6 INCHES ON SUNDAY... LAKE SNOWS SUNDAY NIGHT COULD PRODUCE MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS.

Here's what the Thruway looks like at the moment:

The Daily just put up 11 photos from yesterday's storm coverage.  The photo gallery set up is a little awkward to navigate, but there's some good shots.

Roger Muehlig writes this morning about Bella, a two-year-old Staffordshire-bull mastiff mix, belonging to Tim and Julie LaPorte of Stafford, who gave birth last week to 15 puppies.

A normal litter is is about eight puppies.

Mother and pups are doing just fine.

Mom doesn't play favorites.

"She's wonderful (at feeding). She rotates them. She stays with them all day," Julie said.

It sounds like Bella is a designer dog.

We're really proud of the coverage that Philip Anselmo and Brian Hillabush provided today. If you liked the coverage, please e-mail all of your friends -- be sure they know that a visit to The Batavian is worthwhile because we're going to provide complete and timely coverage of the important and interesting news of Genesee County.

The Daily News has posted the following notice on its web site:

DUE TO STORM: Your Friday paper may be delivered with Saturday's edition.

Also, here's the Daily's latest storm story by Scott DeSmit and Joanne Beck. Key bit of information, GCC was shut down today.

We've had so many posts so far today that some of our earlier posts have flowed off the home page.

And we've got more posts coming from Brian Hillabush and Philip Anselmo.

If you're just hitting the site for the first time today, or might otherwise have missed some coverage, please scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "next" link on the pager to see any coverage you might have missed.

Also, we continue to welcome any weather pictures or stories you might want to post.

WBTA has posted an MP3 audio interview with Tom Nizoil, chief meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Buffalo.  He says snow is falling at a rate of one- to-two inches per hour and that traffic conditions will remain treacherous throughout the day.

Here's the view from the web cam at the I-90/Batavia Interchange.

As the satellite image above shows, a large storm system is moving into Western New York. You can follow the progress of the storm on Weather.com,

WBTA reports that all schools in Genesee County have already announced they are closed today in anticipation of heavy snow and gusting winds.

The National Weather Service reissued its winter storm warning at 3 a.m., with an upgraded prediction of up to 10 inches of snow. Snow could fall from one to two inches an hour during the morning hours, and the heaviest snow fall could be accompanied by thunder. The warning is in effect from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.  While the morning and afternoon storm might dump as much as 10 inches of snow on the region, the evening snow showers could add another three inches.

We encourage you to be safe today.  You can post your own storm updates and information on The Batavian.  Of course, we'll be covering conditions throughout the day. You can also turn into WBTA for storm news updates. We imagine the Daily News will also offer updates.

UPDATE 8:20 a.m.:  The current radar map shows snow falling on the entire region, but we haven't heard yet of a single flak falling.  Have you seen any snow yet?

UPDATE: 8:39 a.m.: Below are web cam images from the I-90 Pembroke Interchange and the I-90 LeRoy Interchange. It looks like the first one shows snow and the second one does. Well, I managed to surprise myself -- thought I was grabing still images from the web cam, but actually the images are refreshing right on our page. As I look now, at 8:46 a.m., big flakes can be seen on the LeRoy cam.

But look at this image from Alden

So, we keep hearing warnings: Lots of snow heading our way.

First, we encourage you to be safe, but if you do happen to stick your head outside and snap a picture, post it to The Batavian.  Or video. Or tell your storm-related story on the site. Let your Genessee County neighbors know how the storm is affecting your part of the community.

We've added a "Business" section to The Batavian.

We will continue to cover business news as we can, but we want local business owners and managers to know that they are welcome to post their own business on The Batavian.

What is allowed: Anything that qualifies as news -- information that will be interesting to readers.

What is NOT allowed: Pure advertising/marketing messages, such as "20 percent off sale" or "we have the best store in town."

Examples of "press releases" you might want to post:

• New business opening
• Relocation
• A new manager or key employee
• Retirement
• Grand Re-Opening event
• Anniversary (good chance to write about the history of the business)
• Advice to readers related to the business specialty.
• New product or service (but this needs to be informational, not promotional)

Please be careful not to republish verbatim material for other publications, which would constitute a copyright violation.

The Batavian reserves the right to remove any content editors determine doesn't meet our guidelines. We may also promote your post to our home page, but make no promise to put any particular post on the home page.

We are eager to get news from any business in Genesee County.

To learn how to post your own news, check out our tutorials on our Help Page.

If you are interesting in advertising, contact Howard Owens, (howard (at) the batavian (one word) dot com, or 585-260-6970).

Cindy Morelli says in her "about" on her profile that she's looking for a job.

We have a Jobs section for employers looking for help, but we haven't really set up a way for a process for job candidates to let potential employers know of their availability, but if you write a blog post about your experience, qualifications and the kind of job you're seeking, we'll find a way to highlight your post.

We're continuely on the look out for local bloggers -- Batavia needs more of them.

In checking member profiles tonight, we found the blog of  Arlana Pathammavong.

Mostly, it's a personal blog of her interests and observations, but she's a good blogger and includes some tidbits of local interest, such as this post about the Pok-A-Dot.