As Fayette County dealt with a blanket of snow over the weekend, Monday saw even more precipitation. Thankfully, according to weather.com, the county may be out of the worst of the snowfall for at least a week.
The current forecast for the week is optimistic, with low to no precipitation and rising temperatures through Friday after a relatively warm, yet wet, Monday. Tuesday should be the coldest day with a high of 13 degrees and a low of 4. Winds will stay around 10 miles per hour all day and skies will remain partly cloudy with more clouds later at night.
Wednesday, also partly cloudy, will have a high of 21 degrees and a low of 10. Winds will rise above 10 miles per hour up to 20 miles per hour. Wednesday night, despite being cold, is expected to have clear skies. Thursday will have a high of 27 degrees and sunny skies to accompany winds around 10 to 20 miles per hour. The low temperature will stay around 18 degrees with clear skies at night.
Finally, Friday through the rest of the weekend is expected to climb above 30 degrees to almost 50 degrees. Some rain may be possible.
“The forecast is always subject to change and rarely do we hit it right on the head,” Fayette County Engineer Steve Luebbe said. “We take the ‘wait and see’ approach where we try and stay ready all of the time, but we apply the appropriate measures to the roadway that the situation calls for. Whether there is heavy snow or it’s ice, we try to react with what we believe the proper response should be.”
Luebbe said one of the issues with ice and snow comes about when they are accompanied by low temperatures. He said the salty treatment becomes ineffective in clearing the roadway when it is too cold. This is the reason, he said, the crews are not putting a lot of salt down when they know it will be ineffective as the salt/grit mixture becomes wasted, meaning wasted taxpayer dollars.
“When it becomes very cold, you have the ice and snow becoming packed and bonded with the road,” Luebbe said. “It can stay bonded to the road for weeks as long as it is cold and the salt is not able to take it off. We are fine on salt levels as we had a lot from last year due to the way salt is sold now. We end up having to purchase in advance. We guess conservatively but we never want to be scrambling around when we run out, so we would much rather have a supply left over.”
Stay with the Record-Herald for more winter weather coverage in Fayette County.
