With this week's snow and cold temperatures, and a weekend warmup on the way, something more than much-needed sunshine is in the forecast.

That's the possibility of potholes. The current and upcoming weather conditions are right for those roadway menaces, but PennDOT officials say they will be ready.

"When it's really wet and really cold, that ice, when it melts, creates a void," said PennDOT spokesman Mike Crochunis said. "That might happen in the next few days."

When we had the single-digit temperatures and subzero wind chills earlier this month, what saved our car's shocks from pockmarked roads was the fact that the conditions were dry. With no snow, very little moisture seeped into the roadways to form into ice, and the warmup that followed was brief.

But with this week's snowy conditions and cold snap that closed schools and made driving tricky, and a warming trend on the way, Crochunis said road crews will be keeping an eye on the possible formation of potholes.

The high temperature on Thursday is expected to rise above the freezing point and hit 34 degrees, and then continue to increase, reaching the upper 40s and lower 50s by the weekend and into at least the beginning of next week.

When potholes arise, PennDOT has a hotline to report those and other issues on the roadways. That's 1-800-FIX-ROAD.

Not many have been reported for far, but they are out there. In Dauphin County, there is some patching scheduled for this week, including work on Chocolate Avenue in Derry Township.