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March 20, 2010

Snow blankets Joplin area; 6 to 8 inches possible, according to National Weather Service

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Sat Mar 20, 2010, 08:23 PM CDT

Globe/Roger Nomer

W.L. “Bud” Gehrs Jr., of Joplin, attends to a chore made necessary by a trick played by Mother Nature on Saturday, the first day of spring, on the Four-State Area.

By Scott Meeker

smeeker@joplinglobe.com

“I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.”

Langston Hughes was writing of the joys of springtime in Harlem in his 1950 book “Simple Speaks His Mind,” but he might as well have been writing about the unpredictability of the season in his birthplace of Joplin.

If you happened to have stuck your head out the window Saturday morning, that rough kiss planted by the first day of spring packed an icy punch.

A day after temperatures reached into the 70s, wet snow and strong winds blew across the southern plains of Oklahoma and into Southwest Missouri. Much of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, along with parts of Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas, were under a storm warning that was to last into today.

Eric Wise, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service station in Springfield, said Saturday afternoon that the snow was expected to continue overnight and into midafternoon today.

“Winter is going out with a bang,” he said. “By midday (Sunday) you could see 6 to 8 inches of snow before it pushes out in the evening hours.”

Wise said temperatures would likely remain in the low 30s today, but would warm up early in the week.

“You should be back in the 60s by Tuesday,” he said.

Dean Smith, street foreman for the city of Joplin, said plow crews were out on the streets Saturday afternoon and will continue working throughout the day today.

“We heard this was going to happen, but I didn’t believe it,” he said with a laugh.

Crews were to continue plowing the main routes — such as Main Street, Schifferdecker Avenue, Fourth and 20th streets, and Maiden Lane — throughout the night, and will put cinders down today in problem areas in residential neighborhoods and along the trolley routes.

Casey Fairchild, a technician with the Missouri Department of Transportation, said most roads in the region were likely to be covered or at least partly covered by this morning.

“Right now (Saturday afternoon), a lot of it’s still slush with temperatures having been as hot as it was on Friday, but it will get down to below freezing overnight.”

When roads are covered, he said driving conditions can become more dangerous, and drivers may not be able to see stripes on the road.

“We don’t recommend that people drive on roads that are covered,” Fairchild said.

He said that MoDOT regularly updates a Web site for motorists to view road conditions throughout the state. The information can be viewed at http://maps.modot.mo.gov/travelerinformation.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.