Another winter storm is hitting the tri-town today, bringing with it high winds, and surprisingly, thunder and lightning.

With 12 to 18 inches of snow and 50 mph wind gusts, Mattapoisett Police Chief Mary Lyons recommended staying off the roads to stay safe and being prepared for possible power outages.

“If you don’t have to be on the road, don’t be out,” she said. “And make sure to have candles lined up or flashlights if the power does go out. Secure anything that may blow away.”

Marion Police Chief Lincoln Miller echoed the suggestion to stay indoors during the storm.

“Stay off the road so the plows can do their jobs more safely,” he said. “Monitor conditions moving forward, and hopefully we’ll be through this before the end of the night. Then we’ll clean up and move on.”

Miller also said that while he’s not anticipating a problem from power outages, his department is prepared to open a warming center should residents lose power for an extended period of time.

As of 2 p.m., there were seven customers in Marion without electricity and 10 in Rochester, according to Eversource.

Marion Department of Public Works Superintendent Rob Zora said his staff has generators ready if they’re needed, but for his department it’s business as usual.

“It’s a normal day, and we’ll handle whatever Mother Nature throws at us,” he said.

Rochester Police Chief Paul Magee said his department called residents in the morning to let them know the Senior Center would be open for shelter if conditions warranted it.

“At this point it's not open, but we're prepared if the need arises,” he said.

There are a handful of scattered outages due to some trees and branches down on electrical wires Magee said, but so far nothing major.

"We have a little extra staff on at the Police Department and in dispatch and the Fire Department is ready to go," he said. "We're as prepared as we can be."

In Marion, Fire Chief Brian Jackvony said he has also upped the staffing in his department so that they will be ready for anything.

“We have staffing at both stations, and we’ll keep the staffing in place until we note the storm is winding down,” he said.

The department relies predominately on paid on-call firefighters, so upping the staff makes it safer for both residents and the firefighters who will already be in place if they’re needed. The extra firefighters also makes it possible to have both ambulances fully staffed in case of an emergency.

Despite the high winds and heavy snow, Jackvony said coastal flooding doesn’t look to be a big problem.

“We haven’t seen too much about storm surge from the state for this storm,” he said.