Roads in Northwest Arkansas will likely be dangerous today for a fourth straight day as snow and sleet that began accumulating Sunday continues to melt and refreeze.
Temperatures today are expected to stay well below freezing, so streets that became slushy Tuesday stand to be slick today.
“We anticipate some black ice to be a problem because there’s a lot of moisture on the roads,” said Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. “I’d say for two-thirds of the state, I anticipate there will be some challenging conditions.”
The largest public school districts in Northwest Arkansas are closed again today.
By Tuesday afternoon, state police officers in the region had worked more than 65 weather-related accidents since the snow began Sunday morning while many people were in church or stocking up on supplies for Super Bowl parties.
The Sunday snowstorm dropped 6 inches near Lincoln, 5 inches in Fayetteville and 4 inches in Fort Smith.
On Monday, more snow fell, but temperatures climbed into the upper 30s melting some of it on area roadways.
The most additional snow accumulation Monday was 1.5 inches in Bella Vista, according to theNational Weather Service in Tulsa. The city already had 4 inches of snow from Sunday.
Northwest Arkansas should get a break from the frozen precipitation today, but there is a chance of snow for the remainder of the week, said Joe Sellers, a meteorologist with the weather service.
In the meantime, bitter cold will be the problem, he said.
Today, the high is projected to be only 20 degrees in Fayetteville, and the low is expected at about 3 degrees tonight.
ELECTRICITY OUT
Elsewhere in the state, ice wreaked havoc Tuesday. More than 61,000 homes and businesses were without power. Disruptions were mostly in Garland, Conway, Mississippi and Pulaski counties.
“We’ve had some heavy ice accumulations,” said Bo Robertson, the Garland County Office of Emergency Management coordinator. “It’s slacked off a bit now, and there’s not much wind, thank goodness.”
The National Weather Service issued an ice storm warning for most of central and northeast Arkansas and forecast accumulations Tuesday of up to half an inch of ice on trees and power lines.
Gov. Mike Beebe announced that only essential state employees needed to work Tuesday. Arkansas State University canceled classes in Jonesboro, Newport and Mountain Home. The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville also canceled classes, as did the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville.
Tuesday’s storm is the 11th this winter and late fall, saidNational Weather Service warning coordinator John Robinson. Usually, Arkansas averages four to five snow or ice storms yearly, he said.
“We have arctic air spilling down into the state time after time,” Robinson said of this year’s weather patterns. “Then, we have moisture coming through from the southwest, and we get the snow and ice.”
Highway Department crews were out across the state pre-treating roads Monday evening with salt and sodium chloride, spokesman Randy Ort said.
“It’s a challenge,” Ort said of keeping the highways passable. “This has been a crazy winter. There’s been travel problems on a whole lot of roads today.”
Across the state, road crews dealt with ice, snow, freezing rain and sleet.
“The only place that’s not bad in the state is the southeast,” Ort said.
DISTRICT 9 ROADS
Steve Lawrence, district engineer for the Highway Department’s District 9, said it has been a rough winter.
District 9 typically gets the most snow of the state’s 10 highway districts, Lawrence said. District 9 covers Baxter, Benton, Boone, Carroll, Madison, Marion, Newton and Searcy counties.
So far this winter, District 9 has used about $1.2 million worth of materials on highways to melt snow and ice, he said.
That’s four times more than last year, when the district spent about $284,000 on snow and ice removal materials, such as salt, sand, sodium chloride and sugar beet juice. When added to salt brine, beet juice lowers the freezing temperature of the mixture and makes it easier to remove ice from the pavement.
Lawrence said the past two winters were mild in comparison. For the winter of 2011-12, the district spent only $133,000 on snow and ice removal materials, he said.
Any money spent on treating roadways cuts into the district’s overall budget, meaning “less money for us to buy hot mix [for asphalt paving] and things for us to do as far as improving the highway surfaces,” Lawrence said.
“But it’s all part of it. It’s what we’ve got to do.”
By Tuesday afternoon, state police Troop L in Springdale reported 29 weather-related accidents since Sunday in its four-county district. Troop H in Fort Smith had more than 20 weather-related accidents, and Troop I in Harrison had 16.
Kelly Johnson, director of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, said the airport used eight tons of de-icing chemicals on the runway Sunday and another 2.5 tons Tuesday morning. The chemicals cost $954 per ton.
Five flights were canceled because of the weather: one to Newark, N.J., on Monday; and flights to Newark, Chicago, Cincinnati and Dallas on Tuesday morning.
RELUCTANT DECISION
School officials in Northwest Arkansas had hoped to hold classes Tuesday, but the weather and condition of roadways prevented it.
As snow days continue to pile up, Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers and Springdale announced Tuesday that they will be closed again today.Students in the Bentonville, Fayetteville and Rogers districts have missed 11 days of class so far this winter. Springdale students have missed 10 days.
On Monday, the Fayetteville School District announced plans to hold classes Tuesday with limited bus service in an attempt to avoid accumulating another snow day that students would have to make up, district spokesman Alan Wilbourn said.
On Monday, the National Weather Service had predicted a wintry mix Tuesday for Fayetteville, but by Tuesday morning the forecast had changed to up to 3 inches of additional snowfall for Fayetteville, and the district again canceled classes.
“Buses would have had difficulty getting around,” Wilbourn said midmorning Tuesday.
At 3:45 a.m. Tuesday, Chris DeWitt, director of transportation for the Bentonville School District, was out driving on the roads and conferring by phone with school officials in Siloam Springs, Gravette, Rogers and the Bentonville Police Department, he said.
“In the southern part of our district, it was clear and dry,” DeWitt said.
But, as he made his way north, he said, he encountered snow flurries in Bella Vista and then heavier snow farther north. He said he began hearing reports of sleet in Siloam Springs and Gravette after 4 a.m.
He reported what he was seeing to Superintendent Michael Poore, who decided to cancel classes, DeWitt said.
While the road conditions early Tuesday were good enough in some places to hold school, they weren’t in other places, and the forecast was dicey, DeWitt said.
“We could easily have gotten all the kids in,” DeWittsaid. “We really didn’t want to get kids in and take a chance on them getting stuck.” TRYING TO HOLD OUT
Between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. Tuesday, the largest districts in Northwest Arkansas began announcing closures.
In Springdale, Gary Compton, assistant superintendent for support services, began conferring with nearby districts about 4 a.m. Tuesday. At first, he said, he thought schools could open because the roads were clear.
But sometime before 5 a.m., he started hearing reports of ice in Siloam Springs, and he had ice pellets bouncing off of his baseball cap. Fayetteville school officials told him that conditions were worsening, as did Springdale bus drivers who were making their way to work.
“We were still trying to hold out,” Compton said. “It was no good.”
Compton recommended to Superintendent Jim Rollins that the district cancel classes, and the decision was announced about 5:45 a.m., he said.
“We sure would like to be in school,” Compton said.
For Northwest Arkansas, from Fort Smith to the Missouri state line, the National Weather Service is predicting a 20 percent chance of snow during the day Thursday and Friday, and a 30 percent chance of snow Friday night and Saturday night.
Fayetteville’s temperature is projected to be a high of 18 degrees and low of 6 degrees Thursday; a high of 28 and a low of 17 Friday; and a high of 33 and a low of 14 Saturday. Those temperatures will be about 5 degrees higher in Fort Smith, according to weather service projections.
Information for this article was contributed by Ken Heard of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/05/2014