Thousands of Lehigh Valley residents remain without power Friday evening as high winds down trees and power lines across the region.
As of 6:40 p.m., PPL was still reporting 5,227 customers in Lehigh County and about 2,562 Northampton County without power. Another 1,470 Met-Ed customers in Northampton County were also in the dark.
Areas with the most outages Friday evening included Allentown, with more than 2,100, as well as Bethlehem, Lower Mount Bethel Township and Washington Township, Lehigh County.
Outages had dipped into the hundreds around midday after numbering several thousand in the morning, but surged later in the afternoon as winds whipped up. At the peak of the outages around 3:30 p.m., more than 12,000 were reported.
One of those outages forced the closure of Christkindlmarkt, the ArtsQuest Center and Bethlehem Visitors Center, Artsquest announced in a social media post around 3 p.m.
Artsquest initially said it was hoping to reopen Friday evening, but an hour later announced that the venues would remain closed until Saturday. The Lotus Land concert, comedy shows and movies that had been scheduled were all canceled. Ticket holders will be refunded.
In addition to winds, there was a possibility of a severe thunderstorm Friday afternoon. The Lehigh Valley was under a severe thunderstorm warning until 2:45 p.m. as showers with damaging winds moved across the region.
One of those wind gusts measured 62 mph at Queen City Airport in Allentown, according to the National Weather Service.
PPL estimated power should be restored by Friday evening. Dana Burns, a PPL spokesperson, said strong winds caused damage to PPL’s system. Strong winds and gusts are expected to continue into the overnight hours, which could cause more outages, she said.
Field crews are working around the clock to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, Burns said.
The outages come while the Lehigh Valley was under a wind advisory most of the day. By late Friday afternoon, the advisory was upgraded to a high wind warning. Winds between 20 and 30 mph, with gusts of up to 60 mph, were expected through late Friday night.
In addition to the wind, much-needed rain fell across the region Friday morning. The National Weather Service was expecting an inch and a half of precipitation.
Rain and gusty winds will continue for our region for much of the morning. These are the expected rainfall amounts today. pic.twitter.com/3JCJ9EQsr2
— NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) December 19, 2025
Behind the cold front, temperatures have plummeted to around freezing, and will drop into the mid-20s overnight. That’s quite a difference from Friday morning, when Lehigh Valley International Airport reported a high temperature of 59. That tied the record for Dec. 19 set back in 1957, according to the weather service.
While Saturday will continue to be cool, high temperatures are expected to return to the low 40s by Sunday, according to forecasters.
Here is the extended forecast from the National Weather Service:
Saturday: Increasing clouds, with a high near 37. South wind 5 to 10 mph.
Saturday Night: Increasing clouds, with a low around 29. South wind 5 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
Sunday: Partly sunny, with a high near 42. West wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.
Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 22. Northwest wind around 10 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 36.
Monday Night: A chance of snow after 1am. Cloudy, with a low around 27. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
Tuesday: A chance of rain and snow before 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 42. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
Tuesday Night: Cloudy, with a low around 32.
Wednesday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 43.
Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 28.
Christmas Day: A chance of rain. Cloudy, with a high near 47. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
Thursday Night: A chance of rain. Cloudy, with a low around 39. Chance of precipitation is 30%.
