Warnings Need To Be Better And More Clear
Thursday morning saw a mess of slippery roads and snow squalls in Cincinnati resulting in numerous accidents. There was not much snow, mostly a half inch or less with only a few hundreths of an inch of liquid. A summary of the event can be found at this link: https://www.weather.gov/iln/20180308
I have seen such conditions over the years. They are hard to predict and create some of the worst winter driving conditions we ever encounter. The night before, I sent out the following text to two of my employees at 8:11 PM: “The National Weather Service has put out a statement for the possibility of scattered snow amounts up to an inch tonight so you might want to be prepared to go out in the morning and put some salt down if need be. Just a possibility at this point especially with the warm ground temperatures.”
Unfortunately, probably the worst case scenario for roads is warm ground temperatures with a quick burst of snow when air temperatures are a few degrees below freezing. Snow initially melts on contact then re-freezes creating exactly the conditions we saw Thursday morning.
Such snow squalls can be rather localized and hard to predict and pinpoint. There was not a general, widespread snow that morning, but it did manage to rake across much of the metro area. The snow squalls were predicted. Such squalls glaze roads so quickly that it is impossible for road crews to get out ahead of them. Salt will quickly blow off roads. Bad roads and accidents are inevitable when timing coincides with rush hour. It is nobody’s fault.
The National Weather Service began trialing snow squall warnings this year in limited markets. I have suggested such warnings for years and would suggest the roll out be expedited. It is the current practice of the National Weather Service to issue a Hazardous Weather Outlook when such conditions are foreseen. Unfortunately, this outlook is not widely disseminated and few even know it exists.
Considering the potential impact of this type of condition, more direct warnings and advisories would be a very good idea.
