Update: Icy roads causing multiple slideoffs and rollovers, dangerous wind chills on the way
Madison drivers are slipping and sliding all over the area Wednesday morning, with numerous calls coming in to the 911 dispatch center for slideoffs, rollovers and fender benders.
Streets superintendent Al Schumacher said many of the problem areas are at intersections, where heat from catalytic converters and mufflers tend to melt ice and snow when cars slow down and stop, with the melted precipitation freezing up almost immediately in the one above zero conditions.
"We have sanders out on all 30 salt routes and we've put additional sanders out as well, trying to hit all the slick spots," Schumacher said.
The city crews are also using a product called IceSlicer on some of the salt routes, a compound that has a reddish color and melts ice down to zero degrees while providing extra traction.
"We put IceSlicer on East Washington and Blair Street and it gave traction right away," Schumacher said.
City crews will be sanding streets all day and night on Wednesday and will continue the sanding operation on Thursday, and will also plow and clear away snow piles from intersections and medians during the night.
Actual temperatures are expected to drop to 20 below zero Wednesday night and Thursday night with wind chills down to 45 below zero, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a wind chill warning in effect from 6 p.m. Wednesday to noon Friday.
The warning was issued because the combination of very cold air temperatures and wind will create dangerously low wind chill values of 35 below zero or colder for three hours or longer.
The warning could mean area school districts, including the Madison Metropolitan School District, will close schools on the days the wind chill warning is in effect, according to district policy, but no determination had been made as of Wednesday morning to close schools on Thursday and Friday.
When schools are closed, a list of closings can be found at http://www.nbc15.com/schools.
"The roads are snow-covered and slippery," said Mark Schnabel of the Dane County Highway Department. "With these low temperatures, salt doesn't work, so we're using sand to give people some traction."
All 58 county trucks were out on the roads. Schnabel said the Madison area lucked out to a certain extent because not as much snow fell overnight as was initially forecast.
"Use common sense when driving," he said. "We won't have bare pavement for a while, so plan ahead when you are making your stops."
The state road condition map as of 10 a.m. showed ice-covered highways in southeast Wisconsin, snow-covered highways in south central and southwest Wisconsin and slippery stretches in central and northern Wisconsin.
A stretch of southbound I-94 in Kenosha County was shut down as of 8:30 a.m. because of an accident due to icy road conditions, with traffic diverted onto frontage roads.
The light snow overnight has ended, but winds will start to kick up to 15 miles per hour Wednesday afternoon, sending wind chills plummeting.
Weather Central meteorologist Kelly Curran said the high temperature on Thursday will be four below zero, then will recover to seven above zero for Friday's high temperature.
The expected lows down to 20 below zero could be the lowest Madison has experienced in eight years, when the thermometer fell to 21 below zero on Dec. 25, 2000.
The record low for Jan. 15 (Thursday) is 30 below zero set in 1953, and the record low for Jan. 16 (Friday) is 28 below zero set in 1994.
The year 1994 was the worst cold weather stretch in recent memory, when record lows were set for three consecutive days, 27 below zero on Jan. 18-20.
The cold snap will snap this weekend, with highs of 21 forecast for Saturday and 27 on Sunday.
The "heat wave" will continue Monday and Tuesday with highs of 28 and 31 expected.
Overnight lows in Wisconsin dropped down to 15 below zero in Ashland and Land O' Lakes, with the coldest wind chill of 29 below zero also recorded in Ashland.
Those temperatures can't hold a candle to the lows in Minnesota, where the 6 a.m. temperature in Hallock in northwestern Minnesota was 27 below zero and the wind chill was 48 below zero.
International Falls, Minn. is expecting a low of 40 below zero Wednesday night with a wind chill of 51 below zero.
Tuesday's high temperature in Madison was 16, nine degrees below normal and 37 degrees below the record high of 53 for Jan. 13 set in 1961.
A trace of snow was recorded at the airport, so the monthly total stayed at 7.3 inches and the seasonal total at 52 inches. Last year, 4.5 inches of snow had fallen to date in January 2008, with 39.5 inches for the record snowfall season of 2007-08.
There's a slight chance of light snow Friday night and Saturday, but no measurable amounts are expected in the forecast through next Tuesday.
