Glazing hits trees, stays off roads

Area dodges weather bullet

An ornament is held in its place by the ice-encapsulated branches of the Jefferson City mayor's Christmas tree on Bolivar Street on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013 following the previous night's freezing rain.
An ornament is held in its place by the ice-encapsulated branches of the Jefferson City mayor's Christmas tree on Bolivar Street on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013 following the previous night's freezing rain.

Once we make it through this weekend, forecasters believe Central Missouri will have a prolonged dry, but cold, period of weather.

The Jefferson City area stayed around freezing Friday night into the day Saturday and that limited the amount of freezing rain, leaving the ice on vegetation only.

"Most places around the city got less than a quarter of an inch of ice," said Meteorologist Wes Browning with the National Weather Service in St. Louis. "We're only expecting to see about a half an inch of snow or less as the system winds down early Sunday morning."

Friday night and Saturday's above freezing temperatures allowed Jefferson City street crews to stay at home.

"We never had to bring our guys in," said Operations Division Director Britt Smith. "We had supervisors divide up the city and monitor street and road conditions throughout the night, but everything stayed wet, thankfully."

Smith said the plan Saturday night into this morning was to once again keep monitoring road conditions and if things get bad, they can get the crews out as quick as possible.

"We'll have eyes on roads and we get help from police on their patrols to get us good warning," Smith said.

Once this system moves through, Browning said, there is a tremendous pool of arctic air coming down from Canada that will stay for a while in Central Missouri.

"Midday Saturday in south central Canada, the temperatures were around -40," he said. "We won't see that, but we will get down to single digit lows for a few days and our highs won't get much warmer than in the 30s because there are several pulses of arctic air coming our way."

Weather resources:

Mid-Missouri forecast, radar, advisories

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