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Posted: 2:55 a.m. Friday, Jan. 18, 2013
By Jay Black
Winter weather threat passes with little excitement.
Kirk Mellish said this was not a milk and bread storm threat when he predicted more rain than anything else and said even if there was some snow most roads would just be wet. But the road crews were ready.
And it rained.
WSB meteorologist Kirk Mellish said all week that Atlanta was on the line between “a big deal and no big deal.” While roads closed in Alabama and schools let out early as snow fell with thunder and lighting.
If you’ve lived in Atlanta long enough, you know how that worked out.
The winter weather system dumped large amounts of snow on states to the west and north, but it started to run out of gas by the time it arrived in metro Atlanta.
Only trace amounts of snow fell in north and west Georgia. Very few flakes fell in metro Atlanta.
The WSB Traffic Center has been reporting patchy black ice spots for the Friday morning commute as temperatures dip down around freezing. But the high winds overnight were drying out the roads pretty quickly as Kirk said in his afternoon forecast yesterday.
So it will mean for a long wait at the bus stop for metro Atlanta students because everybody is going to class today as expected.
Gordon County schools and Calhoun city schools cancelled classes Friday.
Among the schools systems that are delayed two hours in the counties of Dawson, Fannin, Forsyth, Gilmer, Habersham, Union, Walker and Whitfield.
WSB meteorologist Kirk Mellish says morning lows will be between 27 and 31 degrees. So State Department of Transportation crews have been ready to deal with any icing conditions, if they pop up.
The DOT has created 11 new “strategic staging areas” along Georgia’s interstates so salt and stone trucks and can quickly reload. Crews are also armed with a new brine maker that sprays liquid salt on icy roads.
“This is the first winter we have had the capability to make liquid salt,” DOT Operations Director Meg Pirkle said. “We believe it will start the chemical process more quickly, speeding up the melting process on our roads and bridges.”
The other issue is the winds of up to 30 mph. While that will help dry the roads, it also creates the potentinal for a few downed trees and power lines.
The grounds are saturated with all the rain this week, making dead or dying trees vulnerable to the high winds.
But this will be the worst of it.
Mellish says the sun will return later today with highs in the 50s and overnight lows in the upper 20s to around 30. Expect similar conditions all weekend.
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