“Better safe than sorry” is a mantra we’d all be wise to embrace this weekend as Winter Storm Jonas blows through Southside Virginia and the rest of the Mid-Atlantic.

At this writing, forecasts for the Farmville area range from a foot to 2 feet of snow, with blizzard-like conditions and 40-plus mph winds on Saturday.

Here’s hoping that the meteorologists got it terribly wrong and that we’re kicked back this weekend watching television coverage of the storm’s fury in parts further north. There’s no harm, though, in playing it safe and preparing for the worst. Area grocery stores and fuel retailers surely won’t mind a run on their shelves and pumps — and the extra rings of their cash registers. If you end up trapped in your home for a few days, you’ll be glad you stocked up.

We’ll recap the storm and its aftermath in Wednesday’s edition, but you don’t have to wait that long to read about Jonas’ local impact, assuming you maintain a good Internet connection. Frequently visit FarmvilleHerald.com, where our news staff will be hard at work providing the latest information and a gallery of snow pictures. Send us your own at snowpics@farmvilleherald.com and we’ll add them to the gallery. Be sure to include names of people pictured in case we choose your shot to run in next week’s newspaper.

We heard one meteorologist call Jonas the “storm of a lifetime.” Accordingly, we will give a lifetime subscription to the reader who sends us the best snow photo. Email your photos or post them to our Facebook page by midnight Sunday to be eligible.