Matthew A. Ward, Staff Writer,

and R.E. Spears III, Editor

 

Even as they dug out from a winter storm Tuesday morning, folks in Suffolk were preparing for worse weather later this week.

Suffolk will likely shiver through its coldest Feb. 19 in at least 70 years on Thursday, a National Weather Service meteorologist says.

On Feb. 19, 1979, volunteers operating under the service’s Cooperative Observer Program recorded 13 degrees at Lake Kilby, the lowest temperature for that date since data collection started there in 1945, Wakefield-based Eric Seymour said.

According to Seymour, the record should be eclipsed when another Arctic front that will start pushing into the area Wednesday evening brings a low of around 2 on Thursday night.

“If we get to the values we are looking at, it will break. You would be talking about breaking those records easily,” Seymour said.

With -5, Jan. 21, 1985 saw the lowest temperature at Lake Kilby since volunteers began collecting data there, according to Seymour.

Seymour said the coming Arctic front — “It’s just the weather pattern we have been in,” was how he explained its existence here — would be less gusty than last weekend’s.

“It will be a little bit different,” he said. “Saturday had winds up to 50 mph, and we are not expecting wind that strong. Gusts will probably be in the 25-to-30 mph range.”

That wind will still bite, though. Seymour advised Suffolk can expect wind chill between zero and -10. But that should improve from Friday, when the wind tapers off.

After 4 ½ to 5 inches inches fell in Suffolk from early Monday afternoon through Tuesday morning — according to the city of Suffolk — a 30-percent chance of snow is predicted for Wednesday night.

Seymour predicted there will be flurries, but no accumulation.

The big story Thursday and Friday will be “just how cold it is,” Seymour said.

Meanwhile, the region was digging out Tuesday after 4 to 6 inches fell Monday afternoon and overnight. The Virginia Department of Transportation reported most interstate lanes in the Hampton Roads district were plowed as of noon Tuesday. Work continued on shoulders, ramps, bridges and overpasses.

VDOT spokeswoman Susan Clizbe noted a sunny Tuesday was the only day forecast this week to help improve road conditions.

“Low temperatures are forecast for the rest of the week, which means refreezing may occur,” she stated in a news release, adding state road-clearing crews were prepared for Wednesday’s possible snowfall.

Charles Bringuez got his car stuck in the unplowed snow Tuesday as he turned onto his street in Chuckatuck from Godwin Boulevard. His wife, Tatiana and Morris Graves, a neighbor who happened to be leaving the neighborhood at the time, were helping to get the car moving again.

It was the first time Bringuez had been stuck since leaving from his shift at the Norfolk Naval Station at 7:15 a.m., but it was not the first problem he’d had along the way, he said.

“I had trouble on I-64,” he said sheepishly, noting that his car had spun around twice without hitting anything. Fortunately, he said, nobody else was on the road nearby at the time.

The trip took him more than two hours.

And while it was a day at home for most people, Valerie Taylor was one of those expected to show up at a workplace. She was shoveling her long Chuckatuck driveway with neighbor Kenneth Hargrove at 11 a.m., a job expected to take a couple of hours.

Taylor, who said it took more than an hour and 45 minutes to get home during the storm Monday night, had to be at work in Smithfield at 2 p.m. Tuesday. It was Hargrave’s second driveway of the morning, after spending an hour shoveling his own.

Since 8 p.m. Monday, Suffolk Police responded to 24 traffic accidents — one involving non-life threating injuries, the others minor — and assisted more than 79 disabled motorists, according to spokeswoman Diana Klink mid-afternoon Tuesday.

One weary officer Tuesday morning, watching the spinning tires of a car finally catch pavement, began walking back to his police cruiser. Asked how many times he’d done that Tuesday morning, he paused and thought for a moment and then responded: “About 18.”

All primary roads had been plowed and treated at least once since the storm ended, and sections shaded by trees were also being retreated and re-plowed, Klink stated. “Many primary roads have been treated and plowed multiple times,” she added.

A total of 21 city snowplows/spreaders on the job were switching attention to ramps and major secondary roadways, and Fleet Management staff were replacing worn blades and performing other repairs.

Klink stated crews would attempt to address “larger neighborhoods,” but limited turning radii, dead ends and other factors limit access for snowplows and other equipment to some neighborhoods. “Citizens are requested to remove their parked vehicles from the roadways where possible so that snowplows are not impeded,” she wrote.

Klink also said business and homeowners could help by clearing their properties.