The Wright County Highway Department is preparing for the first major winter storm of the season and all 26 plow drivers will be ready to get out on the roads beginning this afternoon and working throughout the overnight hours.
The amount of snow that comes with this event will vary greatly depending on where you live. Current projections have just one or two inches of snow falling in Clearwater, three to four inches in Buffalo and six or seven inches in Delano. If the storm system moves even slightly to the north, those totals could increase significantly. With temperatures in the mid-20s, roads won’t require pretreatment, but once the snow begins, salt and de-icing liquid works well in these temperatures.
This is expected to be about a 12-hour snow event. The slow-moving storm system is moving in from the southwest, so snow in the southwestern portion of Wright County should begin about 12:30 p.m. and the northeast part of the county won’t likely see snow falling until about 1:30 p.m. Wright County Highway Maintenance Supervisor Nate Helgeson said the evening commute will be pretty brutal with significant accumulating snowfall expected throughout all of Wright County from 3 p.m. on.
The Highway Department has been preparing their trucks and plows all morning and expect to run its normal crew on all of its 21 plow routes through the end of the evening commute, with the night crew operating from about 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. and the day crew returning at 2 a.m. to make sure roads are clear for one of the busiest holiday shopping days of the year.
Motorists are asked to give the trucks and plows the room they need to operate so the roads can be clear of snow and ice as soon as possible.