A winter storm dumped up to 3 inches of snow and ice on central and southern Arkansas on Monday, causing major traffic problems in the Little Rock area and canceling flights at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.
At times the snow was heavy, accumulating quickly on roadways and limiting visibility to less than a quarter of a mile, said National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Hood of North Little Rock. A stiff northeast wind of 15 to 20 mph also created difficulties, he said.
“It turned a mostly clear situation into a hazardous one,” he said.
Snow, sleet and freezing rain fell on the southern three-fourths of the state Monday, and forecasters said more would fall overnight before clearing out early today.
The wintry weather spurred a mass exodus from downtown Little Rock after state and city officials closed governmental offices at 1 p.m. Monday. Schools in south Arkansas also closed early because of the snow and ice, although most schools in central Arkansas were closed all day. The Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts all planned to close again today.
The number of motorists created traffic jams on the city’s interstates.
“Snow was coming down, people were making decisions to go home,” said Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. “When you get that volume of people on the highway in the middle of the day, it’s a nonrush-hour rush hour. We’re also out there trying to clear it up.
“That’s a lot going on at one time,” he said.
Road crews were able to pre-treat highways in between two systems that moved through the state Sunday, he said.
United Airlines canceled early Monday departures to Houston, Denver and Charlotte, N.C., and American Airlines canceled its flights to Dallas/Fort Worth, an airport spokesman said. The airport reported no weather-related problems but urged people to check their flights’ status with airlines before coming to the airport.
Little Rock officials temporarily closed Mississippi Avenue from Cantrell Road to Markham Street and northbound traffic on University Avenue from H Street to Cantrell Road to allow crews to treat the hilly stretches, city spokesman Luis Gonzalez said.
Pulaski County sheriff ’s deputies also requested that county road crews apply salt to Stewart Road from Kanis Road to Burlingame Road because of slick spots.
Mark McCoy, a dispatcher for Metro Towing in Little Rock, said there were so many calls for towing services that the business was only taking calls from Little Rock police to help clear accidents Monday afternoon.
“Some people have a hard time driving in Little Rock when it’s dry,” McCoy said. “When ice comes up, they’re slipping and sliding all over.”
He said most calls were coming from accidents on freeways and hills in the city.
Two people were killed in separate crashes on wet highways Sunday, according to the Arkansas State Police.
Brittney Chappel, 20, of Magnolia was killed when the driver of a Ford Mustang she was riding in lost control and drove off the left side of U.S. 79 in Ouachita County about 2:20 p.m. Sunday. The car overturned and struck a tree.
James Owens, 72, of Stuttgart was driving a GMC pickup south on Arkansas 17 north of Holly Grove when a vehicle crossed the centerline and hit Owens’ truck about 7:30 p.m. Owens was transported to the Baptist Health Medical Center-Stuttgart, where he died.
Three others were killed on icy roads last week, police said.
All but the northern tier of the state was under a winter weather advisory Monday.
Fayetteville experienced snow flurries Monday morning, said National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Sellers of Tulsa. Fort Smith reported an inch of snow by noon.
“The cold air hit an upper level system, and it caused more moisture to form,” Sellers said.
Snow and mixed frozen precipitation fell in bands across southwest Arkansas.
Along Interstate 20 in the northern edge of Louisiana to the southern edge of Arkansas, heavy sleet fell, said Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Duplantis of Shreveport. Farther north, up to an inch of snow fell.
“You go 20 miles in a different direction and get a totally different type of frozen precipitation,” Duplantis said.
Sharon Tucker, who works in El Dorado’s accounts payable department, said “It’s not that bad yet” on Monday afternoon. “The roads are getting slushy. It’s only once or twice a year we see snow, so this is do-able.”
The temperature in El Dorado was 28 degrees at noon Monday. On Saturday, it was in the 60s.
“We’re used to the up-anddown business of the weather down here,” Tucker said.
Despite snowflakes falling fast and heavy at lunchtime Monday, customers flocked to Patty’s Down the Road restaurant on Albert Pike Road in Royal.
“It’s coming down real heavy,” said owner Patty Hayden. “I don’t mind the snow much, but I’m getting sick of the cold.
“I’m ready for summer.”
Hayden said she wasn’t serving anything special for the chilled customers Monday in her Garland County eatery.
“They’re eating everything,” she said.
Jonesboro dodged Monday’s snowfall but the air remained frigid. Although the sun did appear in the Craighead County town by afternoon, the mercury remained well below freezing, reaching only 24 degrees by 3 p.m.
The cold air created a run on electric space heaters. Many stores reported having sold out of them over the weekend.
“We sold everything we had left,” said Deidra Addison, an employee at Lowe’s Home Improvement on Fair Park Boulevard in Jonesboro. “Cold weather makes our customers crazy for them.”
She said she also sold out of Styrofoam faucet covers used to protect outside water spigots from freezing, snow sleds and de-icer.
“We had 25 pallets of ice melt Saturday, and each pallet had from 56 to 63 bags on them,” she said. “Today, we have no ice melt.”
Temperatures are expected to rise above freezing for much of Arkansas today, but another round of wintry precipitation is headed from Oklahoma into the state Wednesday.
Central and western Arkansas will likely see snow and sleet forming early Wednesday morning, with chances for the mix lasting through Thursday, Hood said.
“It looks like the southern half of the state will be the main focus again,” Hood said of the next round of snowfall.
Information for this article was contributed by Aziza Musa, Noel Oman and Nikki Wentling of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.