By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
Weather forecasters have made some bad predictions lately. They called for up to six inches of snow Monday night and Tuesday, and they made another bad prediction by calling for “a dusting” of snow on Friday night— when several inches of snow accumulated by midnight.
Saturday morning was a case of too many calls and not enough wreckers as the area was hit with light snow during Friday evening’s rush hour. Then the snow turned heavy, leaving up to four inches in some spots.
Kim Adams with Adams Towing in Sherwood said his firm was “pretty busy. There were cars stranded in Jacksonville, Sherwood, everywhere. In some cases, the weather or road conditions were so bad we couldn’t get to them.”
Adams said he thought his wrecker service was prepared. “But it started getting bad just when most of our guys were getting off. We definitely put in some overtime,” he noted.
Adams said Sunday that they were definitely ready for the next storm, which was supposed to have come in Monday. But it pretty much bypassed central Arkansas. The threat of the storm caused the Pulaski County Special School District and a number of government entities to cancel evening meetings and activities.
The Monday night-Tuesday morning storm was supposed to have dropped about an inch or so in most areas. That didn’t happen, and the weather did not affect schools, which stayed open.
Billy Hall with Ivy Hall towing in Jacksonville said he was “just swamped” Friday night and Saturday morning. “We must have had up to 101 requests for service and just couldn’t get to them all,” Hall said.
He was hoping Sunday that the next storm was all snow and not ice. “There’s just less problems,” he said.
Gene Smith with Smith Wrecker in Cabot said his crew worked all through the night on Friday. “We had several wrecks and big trucks that needed towed on Hwy. 5,” he said.
Tim Moody with Glover’s in Lonoke agreed with the others that Friday and Saturday produced more calls than he could handle. “Luckily nothing serious, but we did pull out a number of vehicles that had slid off the roadway into ditches.”
Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher said he got a report that a vehicle had slid off Hwy. 67/167 at the Main Street Overpass. “It’s pretty easy to lose control there, hitting a bump and then sliding or hydroplaning,” he explained, adding that there were no serious injuries. “The vehicle slid off, but did not flip over, as many others have.”
The weekend storm set a new snow record for Little Rock Air Force Base for Feb. 7, dropping two inches of snow there.
Other areas reporting two inches or more over the weekend included Beebe, Ward, Sherwood and Keo. Cabot reported 1.8 inches officially and Searcy was at 1.2 inches, while north Pulaski County reported 2.8 inches.
The round after round of wintry weather has dropped more than 2.5 inches of precipitation on the area through the first 10 days of the month — an inch more than all of January.
Remember that it takes 10 inches of snow to produce 1 inch of precipitation.
The continued winter weather has caused February’s temperatures to average more than 12 degrees below the norm. But that should change as 50s and 60s are projected for the end of the week and into the weekend. As of Tuesday, no snow or ice was in the forecast.
