HomeAn afternoon of treacherous driving awaits North Texans as what may be the worst ice storm since 2003 gathered strength Tuesday morning north of Dallas-Fort Worth, weather officials said.
Tarrant County roadways were wet but clear in Tarrant County, but temperatures had fallen below freezing by 8 a.m. as the skies unloaded drizzling rain.
Slick roadways are expected, as was the case in counties northwest of the Metroplex, including Wise County where five accidents were reported.
“We’re going to start seeing road problems in the next hour,” said Nick Hampshire, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
It was 29 degrees at the weather service office in north Fort Worth, he said.
He said drizzle and light sprinkles are expected to continue throughout the day, but temperatures aren’t expected to rise because of a shallow arctic air mass that was slowly sliding into Texas from the Great Plains. There could be a half-inch of ice on roadways by the time the afternoon commute starts, Hampshire said.
The worsening conditions have the potential to create the worst ice storm since Feb. 24, 2003 when North Texas was shut down by widespread icing on surfaces and power outages, Hampshire said.
In Wise County, bridges and overpasses along U.S. 287 began to ice over early this morning, particularly north of Decatur, Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Val Lopez said.
“The storm’s moving from the northwest down, and that area got hit first,” he said.
Crews were working 12-hour shifts and were spreading a mixture of sand and magnesium chloride on the icy patches. The highway department had 12 trucks, ranging from pickup trucks to dump trucks, in Wise County, Lopez said.
More crews were on standby in Tarrant County.
The Wise County Sheriff’s Department was urging drivers to stay home, if at all possible.
Dispatcher Jacqueline Kratz said that five accidents have been reported this morning, but none were serious.
Several school districts in the northern part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area have canceled classes Tuesday and the city of Fort
Worth has canceled City Council meetings scheduled for Tuesday.
Temperatures are expected to drop into the 20s this afternoon and much of North Texas is under an ice storm warning until 6 a.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
Road crews are out assessing area roadways, according to reports.
Also, air travel was beginning to experience difficulties.
Officials at DFW Airport at 7:15 a.m. were awaiting delay-cancellation reports from airlines, but 70 flights were already canceled, said Ken Capps, airport spokesman.
He added that 13 de-icing lines began working at 6 a.m.
“It’s going to be a tough travel day from DFW to Chicago all the way to the East Coast,” Capps said. “A lot of airports will have challenging conditions today.
“We’ll be assessing throughout the day so we can get passengers the best information and help them in the terminals throughout the night until the weather moves out of here.”
Several school districts in the northern part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area have canceled classes Tuesday and the city of Fort Worth has canceled City Council meetings scheduled for Tuesday.
The Northwest school district in Tarrant County is closed, but the Fort Worth, Arlington and other major school districts in Tarrant County were planning to be open The Lewisville and Denton school districts in Denton County will be closed Tuesday, as will the Alvord/Decatur, Bridgeport and Bryson school districts in Wise County.
The Fort Worth district would be opening on time, but district officials are holding open the option of an early dismissal. The district is giving parents the option of keeping their children home today with an excused absence, district officials said.
The Weatherford school district in Parker County also will be closed.
The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Christian University and Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, and the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University in Denton announced that classes and activities would be canceled at their campuses Tuesday. UNT’s campus in Dallas will be closed as well.
The Tarrant County College campuses will be closed.
The city of Fort Worth has canceled both the 8:30 a.m. pre-council meeting and the 10 a.m. City Council meeting because of the predicted bad weather, according to the city’s Web site. It said that council members would take up items from Tuesday’s meetings at the the regular council meetings scheduled for Feb. 3.
Early reports indicate that some icing is occurring northwest of Fort Worth on Texas 287 in Wise County, but roads in Tarrant County were slick but not frozen, according to broadcast reports.
Traffic.com reports that Texas 287 is icy north of Decatur.
Traffic.com reported that some ice was forming on I-35E north of Denton and that some accidents and road closures were being reported in that area.
To the northwest of the Metroplex, police in Wichita Falls blamed 22 traffic accidents in which three people were injured during an 8-hour time frame on falling temperatures and dangerous road conditions, The Associated Press reported.
The injured were taken to a hospital in Wichita Falls — one person had serious injuries and two people had non-life-threatening injuries, according to Sgt. Danny Wiggins with the Wichita Falls Police Department.
Wiggins said the 22 accidents had happened since 7 p.m. Monday.
At 6 a.m. Tuesday in the Metroplex, temperatures were generally at or above freezing, with the coldest temperatures to the north of the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Temperatures were expected to continue falling this morning with light drizzle falling over much of the area. The weather service warned that bridges and overpasses were in danger of icing as temperatures fall throughout the day.
The cold, icy conditions are being created by a shallow arctic air mass that is creeping across North Texas while an upper-level storm system moves in from the southern Rockies Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
source: http://www.star-telegram.com/