How much more ice and snow should you expect in the metro-east? Depends where you live
.jpg "Metro-east residents woke up to an unpleasant surprise of winter weather Monday morning. Late Sunday evening and throughout the overnight hours, a mix of sleet, ice and snow hit the area, causing school cancellations and hazardous driving conditions for the morning commute.")
Winter weather arrived in St. Louis and the metro-east on cue in early morning hours Sunday.
An area that extends from Randolph county to the south to north of Springfield remains under a Winter Storm Warning through this evening, according to the National Weather Service office in St. Louis.
What that means varies by location. In Belleville, it means a wintry mix that, into Sunday’s daylight hours, that is mostly heavy sleet and snow. That will continue through about 4 or 5 p.m. before changing to mostly freezing rain in the evening, the weather service forecasts.
Total snow and sleet accumulation will be up to 3 inches with .1-inch of freezing rain on Sunday.
A wintry mix continues into the evening and into Monday morning, with an additional 4 inches of snow possible in addition to another .1 inch of new ice.
Making road travel especially difficult will be blustery wind to the northeast at 17 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Today’s high will be 26 degrees with an overnight low of 17.
Precipitation will begin tapering off overnight toward 8 a.m., but continued 30-mph wind gusts will make clearing roadways difficult.
The forecast is similar in locations north of Belleville, including O’Fallon, Collinsville, Edwardsville and points in between. The degree of winter mix, however, changes to the east and south of downtown.
In Mascoutah and New Baden, the National Weather Service forecasts snow up to 7 inches today with lesser amounts of sleet, and up to 3 additional inches of snow this evening. Freezing rain and wind also will be factors with .2 inches of ice forecast with 30 mph wind gusts through Monday.
New Athens and Red Bud should expect higher accumulations of freezing rain, according to the weather service, with up to nearly a half inch through the overnight hours. Total now and sleet accumulations will be in the 3- to 7-inch range.
The remainder of the week will be mostly clear, but very cold and windy with high temperatures in the low 20s and lows in the single digits, according to NWS.