As grey skies turned to snow, snow turned to sleet, and sleet turned to ice pellets clinking across the windows of Western Carolinians, residents across the region turned to social media to document the ice storm that left many Ashevilleans housebound this morning, Tuesday, Feb. 17.
A layer of ice began to build up on the streets by mid-day Monday, leaving both pedestrians and drivers skidding along the sidewalks and streets. Over night, about 1,200 North Ashevilleans experienced power flickers and outages after heavy ice damaged Duke Energy equipment.
According to @CityofAsheville, 27 Public Works employees worked overnight with 12 plows and 9 salt-spreaders to keep roadways clear and salted, melting ice and preventing further build-up. Today, an additional 30 employees continue to work, making Asheville’s roads safe for vehicles. Even with efforts to clear the roads, the Asheville Police Department stated that, as of 11:23 a.m., 32 vehicles have reported collisions within the last 24 hours.
Tuesday’s high is 29 degrees with a low of 16. Winds today are gentle, around 8mph. On Wednesday, we’ll start to see temperatures drop to single and negative digits — with a high of 26 and a low of -2. There will be a chance of snow showers throughout the day on Wednesday, with a 30 percent chance starting around 7 p.m. tonight, a 70 percent chance building up around noon, then tapering off around 2 a.m. Thursday morning. Winds are expected in the morning around 15mph, with gust chances as high as 32mph. An accumulation of 1-3 inches of snow is predicted for the Asheville area.
Thursday will see a high of 14 and a low of 1, before the area (slightly) warms back up to 26 high, 19 low on Friday.
Here’s what residents had to say about today and yesterday’s #avlwx #IceStorm2015, in chronological order, beginning with the first flurries:
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