JEFFERSON — The Jefferson County Highway Department is bracing for more inclement winter weather today into Thursday, but its plows and staff are ready.
This round of precipitation, however, appears as if it might offer more sleet and freezing rain than snow, according to the National Weather Service at Sullivan.
“Higher snow totals are favored across central Wisconsin, where precipitation is expected to fall mainly as snow,” NWS meteorologists said on the service’s website. “Amounts will be lower farther south, as more sleet and freezing rain mix in.”
Jefferson County Highway Department Superintendent Sean Heaslip and others were busy Tuesday preparing the department for the stormy weather anyway. By mid-day Tuesday, 22 trucks were ready for service, their back areas brimming with salt. Salt brine trucks were also full.
“And we have four backup (trucks),” Heaslip said. “Those, along with the 22, are every plow (we have).”
Heaslip acknowledged that the storm is likely to be “complex.”
“It does look like a mix of freezing rain, snow and sleet,” he said. “It’s been a tough year, because the storms have lasted longer than some in the past.”
Heaslip has heard some people say that this winter has not dished up as much snow as in the past, but the difference is that the snow this season has usually fallen and melted quickly, he said.
The county is actually receiving an average snowfall so far this winter, according to the NWS.
The county is in good shape in terms of its salt supply, officials said. Heaslip showed off two huge sheds full of millions of dollars worth of salt. The sheds are easily visible from the State Highway 26 Bypass of Jefferson on the city’s southwest side.
Drivers should be patient and maintain a safe distance when they encounter plows working on all roadways in the area during every storm, Heaslip said.
The storm is scheduled to end Thursday evening, with decreasing clouds, according to the NWS. Friday is predicted to be mostly sunny with a high of 18 degrees.
The storm that is predicted for the Dodge and Jefferson County areas is expected to dump heavy snow over parts of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.
The system was headed straight for the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where 2 feet of snow or more was possible.
The NWS said the blizzard will actually involve two rounds. For the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the first blast that arrives today and will bring up to 7 inches of snow. Round 2 starting later Wednesday and into Thursday is the real whopper, “with an additional 10 to 20 inches expected.”
The weather service described the system as a “historic three-day winter storm” that would cause life-threatening travel disruptions. Weather service meteorologist Frank Pereira said it was expected to affect about 43 million Americans.
Bitter cold and strong winds will only make matters worse.
Temperatures could plunge to minus 15 to minus 20 degrees on Thursday (minus 26 to minus 29 Celsius) and minus 25 degrees (minus 32 Celsius) Friday in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Wind chills could fall to 50 degrees below zero (minus 46 Celsius), said Nathan Rick, a meteorologist in Grand Forks.
The snowfall could be historic, even in a region that gets a lot of snow.
According to the weather service, the biggest snow event on record in the Twin Cities was 28.4 inches from Oct. 31 through Nov. 3, 1991 — known as the Halloween Blizzard. The second-largest was 21.1 inches of snow from Nov. 29 through Dec. 1, 1985. The Twin Cities got 20 inches of snow on Jan. 22 and Jan. 23, 1982.
Portions of northern Illinois, southern Michigan and southern New York state could get up to half an inch of ice, which could topple power lines and cause outages, AccuWeather said.
As the northern U.S. deals with a winter blast, record warmth is expected in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast — 30 degrees to 40 degrees above normal in some places. Record highs are expected from Baltimore to New Orleans and in much of Florida, Pereira said.
Washington, D.C., could hit 80 degrees on Thursday, which would top the record of 78 degrees set in 1874.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
