Snow limits visibility

Staff

Published Tuesday, January 30, 2007

By Sarah Kirchner, staff writer

Little snow fell Monday but blustery winds made for a cold day with low visibility in places.

Albert Lea police reported three car wrecks, with no one injured. The county sheriff’s office reported five cars in ditches and one wreck, all with no injuries.

Only an inch of snow fell Monday in Albert Lea.

However, with winds gusting up to 38 mph, visibility was calculated at about a quarter of a mile, said National Weather Service technician Ross Carlyon.

Carlyon said winds were steady at 20 mph and then gusting into the 30s by 3 p.m. In the evening the winds diminished a bit, Carlyon said, “but they were still going pretty good.”

The wind gusts and near-white-out conditions in some places caused many in rural areas to pull over off the road until visibility returned.

“There’s nothing we can really do to help the visibility when Mother Nature decides to blow the snow around,” said Curt Rebelein, maintenance supervisor for Freeborn County.

Rebelein said the county plows went out to the rural areas at 5 a.m. today because the visibility was better. The county plowed its roads inside Albert Lea at about 1:30 p.m. Monday.

“We just try to get everything safe for everybody to get home around town,” Rebelein said.

The high Monday was 32 degrees with a low of 6, but with the wind chill it felt more like 8 below, between 3 and 4 p.m. At 10 p.m. the temperature was 1 degree, but the wind chill factor made it feel like 18 below.

It is a cold one today, too. The high is forecast at about 14 degrees. By 6 p.m. today the temperature is expected to be 5 degrees.

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