Winter Storm Warning issued for Monroe County
The St. Louis National Weather service issued a Hazardous Weather Outlook and a Winter Storm Warning early Saturday morning, which is in effect from 6pm Sat – 6am Mon. This warning includes Monroe and St. Clair counties, and was issued for snow, sleet, and freezing rain in our area – to begin Saturday evening.
Travel will be hazardous Sunday night and Monday morning, with strong winds blowing the snow and making regular travel difficult. Also, the potential ice/freezing rain accumulation could affect power lines, and outages are always possible. Temperatures will be near-record lows.
A winter storm warning means that a significant amount of snow…sleet and/or ice is expected or occurring. Strong winds are also possible.
Please take any precautions you would normally take for a high-impact winter storm.
Even if the numbers shift, it’s better to be prepared than surprised.
**Should any significant changes in the forecast occur, updates will follow.
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Local road reports and accidents (Mar 2 11:00am update)
7:00pm – High winds and blowing snow is reducing visibility on most roads.
12:00pm – Main Street in Columbia is mostly clear. Side roads are still very slick.
11:00am – Semi tractor-trailer lost control on I-255 westbound at the Columbia exit and came to rest in the median around 11 a.m. No injuries reported.
11:00am – Travel to JB Bridge from Waterloo and in South County is hazardous. Little to no clearing on roads.
6am – Snow plow on its side 3500 floraville road in St. Clair County south of Paderborn. Hecker fire called to assist with entrapment, but no apparent injuries. 6 am.
5am – Millstadt fire called to a vehicle accident on Concordia Church Road near the Quail Club around 5 am.
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Local cancellations and closings
- Mar 1 – Waterloo VFW’s Wing Ding Dance
- Mar 2 – Waterloo St. Paul UCC services and Sunday School
- Mar 2 – Holy Cross Lutheran Church of Wartburg (services and Sunday School cancelled)
- Mar 2 – First Baptist Church – Dupo
- Mar 2 – Real Life United Methodist Church – Waterloo – Sunday services cancelled
- Mar 2 – Friedens UCC – Hecker, IL
- Mar 2 – Hope Christian Church
- Mar 2 – Life Community Church
- Mar 2 – Turning Point Worship Center – Cahokia
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Mar 2 11:24am – From Chris Higgins, Fox 2 News
Our winter storm produced the expected round of heavy freezing rain and sleet with lightning and thunder late last night into this morning…now we are going through the lull that I forecast last night from mid morning into early afternoon. However, signs still point to precip ramping up again this afternoon and into the evening.
My concerns expressed last night about the areas northwest of STL coming up short on the snowfall totals came to pass. Wish I had made the move to follow my gut and cut the forecast in half up there…but I didn’t…that forecast is a bust…but that’s water under the bridge…time to move forward.
Further south…things have played out pretty much as expected to this point with mainly sleet and freezing rain with a gradual flip to snow now underway.
There are still two more waves of snow to affect the viewing area later this afternoon into tonight. The first is the organizing in a zone which will focus on areas along and just north of I-70 this afternoon/evening. The second is directly tied to the main upper level storm center as it lifts through southeast MO.
Looking at additional accumulations of “stuff” I’m paiting the 1-3″ from STL to the north… and 3-5″ from STL to the south…with a narrow band of totals perhaps as high as 7″ from Potosi to Mt Vernon.There may be a few spots in that band that go higher…but hesitate to go there just yet. Other than some lingering sleet…the dominate precip type will become snow through the afternoon.
For metro STL… We get a piece of both bands…so there should be a little overlap. Including the sleet that is already down… I’m thinking…the metro still has a shot to reach the low end of my origianl 4-6 forecast… so definitely focusing on 4″ in the metro STL by the time all is wrapped up.
National Weather Service – Mar 2 – 6:32am Update for Monroe County
ILZ069-070-074-101-102-MOZ065-072-073-030600-
/O.CON.KLSX.WS.W.0004.000000T0000Z-140303T1200Z/
CLINTON IL-CRAWFORD MO-JEFFERSON MO-MARION IL-MONROE IL-
ST. CLAIR IL-WASHINGTON IL-WASHINGTON MO-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…BELLEVILLE…SALEM
632 AM CST SUN MAR 2 2014
…WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM CST MONDAY…
* TIMING…SLEET MIXED WITH FREEZING RAIN THIS MORNING…IS
EXPECTED TO CHANGE TO MOSTLY SNOW DURING THE AFTERNOON…AND
CONTINUE TONIGHT.
* ACCUMULATIONS…SLEET AND SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 5 TO 8
INCHES…ALONG WITH UP TO TWO TENTHS OF AN INCH OF ICE.
* WINDS…NORTH 10 TO 15 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 25 MPH.
* IMPACTS…ICE…SLEET AND SNOW ACCUMULATION WILL CONTINUE TO
CAUSE HAZARDOUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS THROUGH TONIGHT OVER
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI AND SOUTHERN ILLINOIS. ICE ACCUMULATIONS
MAY CAUSE DAMAGE TO TREES AND OVERHEAD LINES…AND POWER AND
TELEPHONE OUTAGES ARE POSSIBLE.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS THAT A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF SNOW…
SLEET AND/OR ICE IS EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO
POSSIBLE.
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The precipitation will change over to mostly snow sometime during Sunday afternoon. The latest models suggest that this will be more of a snow event than originally projected, with potential totals of 4″-6″ inches in the immediate area possible, on top of the sleet already on the ground.
Latest RADAR image (5:00pm – Mar 2)
Projected precipitation totals (as of 5:00pm – Mar 2)
The charts below are the latest projected numbers from the St. Louis National Weather Service’s Storm Total Forecast page. The snow total forecast is the amount of potential snowfall on Sunday night.
Old Updates
(Mar 1, 7:30pm update via Chris Higgins’ FB page)
Major winter storm is still on track for the entire Bi-State area despite the fact there are some questions about how much snow vs. sleet will fall in the metro late tonight through tomorrow…making exact accumulations tough to call. In general, the trends remain the same…snow north…ice storm south…messy mix in the middle (including STL).
…Metro STL, the I-44 corridor and areas along and north of I-70 in IL.
Freezing drizzle will ramp up to freezing rain between midnight and 3am…before mixing with and changing to sleet. In the metro area… freezing rain and sleet may enhanced by thunderstorms around sunrise. Glaze icing could reach 0.1” on trees and powerlines…not enough for power outages. Precip will be a mix of sleet and snow by morning and become all snow through the day. The winter mix will come in waves with total accumulations of sleet and snow combined from 4” to 6” possible in this zone.
- From Meteorologist Chris Higgins @Fox 2
(Mar 1, 4:00pm update via Dave Murray’s FB page)
Saturday night…a light sleet and freezing rain will develop during the evening…things should be okay for a few hours but going quickly downhill…after 10pm travel will start to get dicey. Then its all about sleet the bulk of the late night hours…with 1 to 2 inches of sleet possible…very productive.
Sunday…sleet mixes with snow and some thunder may get involved. There will be a break in the action for a few hours around mid-day (this is not the end of the storm) this is the time frame when the low pressure swings by…so we get dry slotted for awhile. Then we get on a very productive def zone on the backside of the system…it will be all snow…moderate to heavy snow mid to lat afternoon and into the evening on Sunday.
The storm shuts down late Sunday night…however…the winds will increase…with blowing and drifting and temperatures will continue to fall.
