The St. Louis region will see yet more wintery weather that will drop multiple inches of snow starting Tuesday afternoon — with areas to the southwest expected to receive far more.
Parts of Missouri near Rolla are projected to get 7 to 12 inches of snow, while areas to the north of St. Louis could see as little as 1 to 3 inches, according to the local National Weather Service.
“There's going to be a pretty sharp gradient that sets up somewhere near the Metro St. Louis area,” said Kevin Deistch, a meteorologist with the Weather Service, at a Tuesday briefing. “And that's something we're really going to watch over the next couple hours.”
This latest snow comes a little over a month after the region saw double-digit snowfalls in some places and the City of St. Louis drew strong criticism for its response, which left side streets, alleyways and sidewalks covered with ice for days.
After a dusting of snow accumulated Tuesday morning, this batch started around 3 p.m. in the region southwest of St. Louis, and it will begin closer to 6 p.m. in the northeast, Deistch said. Snow began earlier in places like Rolla.
Meteorologists anticipate the snow will end between midnight and 3 a.m. Wednesday, moving west to east across the region, Deistch said.
It will likely stay throughout much of the week, as temperatures are predicted to remain well below freezing until the weekend. That will mean wind chills below zero on Wednesday and Thursday, Deistch said.
“After this moves through, we still expect this bitter cold to stay around,” he said.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones reminded city residents to park on the odd-numbered sides of streets on hills to make way for snowplows. The city will again not be cleaning residential side streets throughout neighborhoods, the mayor’s spokesman said Monday.
Many of the roadways in and around St. Louis remained partly covered throughout much of Tuesday, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation. Conditions on roads deteriorate going farther south and west in the state.
So far, travel volumes are down on Missouri roads and the accidents have been minimal, according to MODOT and Corp. Dallas Thompson of the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Bob Becker, district maintenance engineer with MODOT, said state crews were able to take advantage of the lull in snowfall through much of the day to treat roadways. However, the streets are now wet.
“Conditions can change quickly as the temperature changes because of these extreme temperatures,” Becker said. “As the sun goes down, that’s going to affect roadway temperatures. So, we want people to slow down and be careful.”
In much of the Metro East, road conditions were similar. Snow left most of St. Clair County roads partly covered, while more roads in Madison County were mostly covered, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Two ferries north of St. Louis in Illinois maintained by IDOT closed Tuesday morning due to increasing ice flow on the Illinois River, according to the state agency. The closures of the Brussels Ferry, near the convergence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, and the Kampsville Ferry, located about 30 miles north, leaves just one bridge to get into Calhoun County from Illinois.
Making the most of winter weather
Michael Perman brought his 16-year-old son, Luciano, to Art Hill for his first sledding experience since moving to Clayton from Los Angeles last August.
“I thought we’d take advantage, and luckily we beat the rush,” he said. “It looks like because of the cold, most people decided to wait until later tomorrow.”
Perman said he was thankful for the opportunity to experience a Midwest winter storm. He’s taking the unpredictable weather in stride.
“It’s like my baseball coach used to say during a Little League game, ‘Rain out or rain delay — you can’t do anything about the elements,’ so we’re just rolling with it,” he said. “I think we're ready for whatever happens.”
Ryan Lanier took time off work to take his children Everett, 7, and Violet, 5, sledding on Art Hill. His parents, Ron and Carol, are visiting from Chicago.
As they sledded down the steep slope of Art Hill, they often had to pull themselves down the hill because there wasn’t quite enough snow to provide a clean slide.
“It’s still fun, but you're not zooming down Art Hill like you usually are,” he said. “We actually strategically came here today, hoping there wouldn't be a ton of people.”
As for some forecasts calling for several inches of snow, Lanier said he takes predictions with a grain of salt — especially in St. Louis.
“I am not extremely hopeful that we'll get a ton more snow,” he said. “It does seem like there's usually quite a bit of hype and not a lot of snow.”
