Road conditions are gradually improving after the area’s first bout of wintry weather Saturday, however, residents will still need to exercise caution to close out the weekend and begin the workweek.
Saturday saw little in the way of snow accumulations, however, a thin glaze of ice did lead to hazardous road conditions and a number of accidents including one fatality crash in Osage County Saturday evening.
Emporia Public Works Director Dean Grant says crews mobilized around 5 am to salt and treat roadways. Those efforts combined with sunshine in the afternoon hours have managed to make most major arterial roadways passable, however, the majority of residential and collector streets remain slick and partially snow-covered.
Grant says they will re-evaluate conditions Monday morning to see if additional treatment will be necessary.
Most county roadways are drivable thanks to treatment efforts by county road crews Saturday which have managed to hold despite subzero wind chills in the overnight hours according to Lyon County Engineer Chip Woods.
Major highways including Interstate 35, Kansas Highway 99 and US Highway 50 are all experiencing seasonal driving conditions. The Kansas Turnpike from the Emporia Tollgate is partially snow-covered with occasional slick spots.
Temperatures Saturday dropped to the single digits with wind chills around -10 in the late afternoon to evening hours. Temperatures would drop as low as 2 in the overnight period with wind chills remaining in the negative range.
Wind chill advisories were issued for the entire KVOE listening area Saturday, but have since expired. Despite this, it will still be plenty cold over the course of the next 24-hours with temperatures forecasted in the low teens to single digits once again and wind chills again expected to be in the negative range.
Though road conditions have improved, Lyon County Undersheriff John Koelsch says he expects travel will still be hazardous by morning time Monday due to the likelihood of refreezing during the evening and overnight hours.
The weather will warm up slightly Monday with highs in the mid to upper 40’s and lows in the lower 20’s and high teens through Tuesday. The air will get frigid once again Wednesday with a high of 29 forecasted and lows in the single digits.
The wintry weather did lead to a number of schedule adjustments for local and area churches on Sunday. So far, no cancellations or schedule adjustments have been announced for the coming work week.
If you have schedule adjustments to report, whether they are closings, cancellations, postponements or delays, call KVOE at 620-342-1400. You can also:
*Email kvoe@kvoe.com.
*Message Twitter@kvoeam1400 or Facebook@kvoenews.
*Message the Bluestem Farm and Ranch text line at 620-342-5863.
Be sure to stay with KVOE, KVOE.com and KVOE social media for updates. If you haven’t already done so, join KVOE on Facebook and Instagram — both @kvoenews — and Twitter@kvoeam1400. Also, be sure to download KVOE’s free mobile app so you can get our winter weather coverage wherever you may be.
8:30 am Sunday: WEATHER: Primary highways passable; Local authorities advising residents to avoid travel if possible through morning hours
All told, the precipitation totals from our first winter storm of the season were quite low. Unfortunately, the thin glaze of ice and dusting of snow had a high impact on area travel Saturday.
Travel issues hit in waves through the day, with the first one coming shortly after Emporia and Lyon County road crews were called out to treat roads around 3:30 am. The only confirmed injury crash in the early round of wreck happened in the 2300 block of Burlingame Road around 6:30 am. Lyon County Deputy Eric Williams says 21-year-old James Richardson of Emporia was southbound on Burlingame Road when he hit an ice patch and his truck went into a nearby ditch. Richardson was not wearing his seatbelt and had potentially serious injuries before being transported to Newman Regional Health for medical care.
The next round started shortly before lunchtime and involved three reported injury crashes on Interstate 35 from the Burlingame Road to near the Hartford-Neosho Rapids exit, of which two triggered ambulance trips: a semi rollover wreck near Road U and an SUV crash near Burlingame Road. There were suspected minor injuries with both crashes.
The third general round started shortly before sunset with two reported injury crashes but no hospital trips.
Conditions were slick all day, in part because of the wintry mix that started the event and in part because temperatures were too cold for city and county treatment materials to be effective.
Icy and windy conditions may have also had something to do with three major power outages that hit parts of the KVOE listening area Saturday morning. The last of the set hit the east half of Emporia and stretched to near Roads 170 and T shortly before 10:30 am, wiping out power to over 1,700 customers in the process. Early indications are a downed power line at least contributed to the outage, which was restored by 1 pm. The largest outage impacted most of Osage County. It started shortly after 6 am and affected almost 2,500 Evergy customers before it was resolved. The first large-scale outage started around 4 am and covered most of northwest Lyon County, including Allen, Americus and Bushong.
Extremely cold air settled in over the area, dropping temperatures from the low 20s before sunrise to the single digits with wind chills approaching -10 by late afternoon. Overnight temperatures dropped to as low as 2 with wind chills as low as -10 at one time.
Wind chill advisories continue areawide until 11 am Sunday.
Public Works Director Dean Grant says crews resumed treating streets around 5 am, trying to give drivers some traction even though the temperatures are still too cold for treatment materials to cause any melting.
Lyon County Undersheriff John Koelsch says the primary highways, I-35 and Highway 50, are still wet with some occasional slick spots and the shoulders are still heavily snow-packed, however, they are passable. Koelsch recommends if you are traveling on the highways to be extra cautious and not travel at highway speeds.
As for local roadways, Koelsch says if you do not have to travel, don’t.
With the poor travel conditions and biting cold, there were a handful of schedule adjustments announced:
Click here for the latest closings and cancellations.
If you have schedule adjustments to report, whether they are closings, cancellations, postponements or delays, call KVOE at 620-342-1400. You can also:
*Email kvoe@kvoe.com.
*Message Twitter@kvoeam1400 or Facebook@kvoenews.
*Message the Bluestem Farm and Ranch text line at 620-342-5863.
Be sure to stay with KVOE, KVOE.com and KVOE social media for updates. If you haven’t already done so, join KVOE on Facebook and Instagram — both @kvoenews — and Twitter@kvoeam1400. Also, be sure to download KVOE’s free mobile app so you can get our winter weather coverage wherever you may be.
