COEUR d’ALENE — A hefty shot of winter weather is on the way.

A strong storm system is expected to bring widespread and possibly heavy snow and ice to the region today and Friday.

The National Weather Service in Spokane issued a winter storm watch that goes into effect today, running through Friday afternoon.

“Snow will start in the Cascades Thursday morning and spread eastward during the day, reaching the Idaho Panhandle by late afternoon,” said the weather watch message issued Wednesday. “Snow may change to freezing rain in the Columbia Basin by Friday morning with light to moderate accumulations of ice in addition to snow accumulation.

“Be ready for snowy and icy travel on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.”

The weather service said the storm will exit the region on Friday.

Meteorologist Randy Mann concurred with the prediction, saying people should prepare for very icy conditions.

“It looks like the weather service is going for a tenth of an inch of ice possible,” Mann said. “I would certainly go with that for (this) evening and lasting into Friday morning before it changes to rain.”

Mann said he expects to see snow showers resume throughout the weekend and early into next week.

“We should have some snow showers on Saturday and a pretty good shot of snow on Sunday,” he said. “Then we should see snow showers early next week. It looks like we have a pretty good shot at a white Christmas.”

The weather service made no mention of snow on Saturday, but said additional snowy weather systems are expected for Sunday and possibly Monday next week which may produce light to moderate accumulations in the valleys and possibly heavy mountain accumulations.

“This is a very complicated forecast, so confidence in the exact type of precipitation each area receives is still low,” stated the weather service. “It will become more clear as we near the event.”