Snow storm keeps Sterling street crews on the clock

STERLING — When Mother Nature dialed up snow, Sterling’s street department workers answered the call.

That’s exactly what happened Monday night into Tuesday, as the first shift of Sterling’s snow plow drivers got called in around 9:30 p.m. Monday and clocked out after a 12-hour shift, Public Works Superintendent Brad Schrader said during an interview with Shaw Media on Tuesday.

“They went through and salted and then kind of patrolled last night,” he said. “I don’t think we got as much as we anticipated [overnight].”

As of 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the second shift of drivers was out in force clearing the third tier of the city’s streets, Schrader said.

Sterling’s streets are placed in one of three categories: snow routes, secondaries and residential.

The snow routes are “the main arteries through town,” such as Illinois Route 40, Third and Fourth streets and Lynn Boulevard, Schrader said. Secondaries include 11th and 14th streets – among others – while residential is everything else.

“Right now, snow routes are pretty much just wet, but they’re clear,” Schrader said. “They [snow plows] just went into residential probably an hour ago.”

He expected the snow routes would need another pass come sundown, when the temperature would start to drop. At that point, snow plow drivers would finish up the residential routes and return to the snow routes, Schrader said.

Drifting hadn’t been an issue, at least, Schrader noted, adding that he doesn’t anticipate it to become one, since it’s a wet, heavy snow.

On Wednesday morning, there’ll be an employee that comes in with the “big loader” and snow box who will clear as many of the downtown business parking stalls as possible, he said.

That snow will be taken to two parking lots south of the railroad tracks, where it will sit until it melts, Schrader explained. Once it’s melted – which likely won’t happen until the end of winter – crews will go in to clean up the garbage that’s left, he said.

“You’d be surprised how much garbage is in the snow,” Schrader said.

Lee and Ogle counties were on track Tuesday afternoon to receive the pre-storm forecast of 7 to 11 inches of snow, said National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Baker.

With the main snow storm circulation shifting through southern and south-central Illinois, precipitation was expected to continue to pivot through Lee and Ogle counties and across the northern part of the state overnight and into Wednesday, he said.

“Temperatures are hovering around freezing with winds starting to shift more northerly,” Baker said. “That’ll help usher in some cooler air to keep the snow going [in the area], … so it won’t switch to a mixed precipitation of snow and rain like northeastern Illinois’ seeing.”

Temperatures are expected to remain steady through most of this week with highs in the mid- or upper 20s and overnight lows in the 20s, Baker said. However, a blast of arctic air expected to hit this weekend will cause temperatures to fall, leaving Sunday’s highs in the single digits, he said.

“As we go into the start of next week, highs will be in the low single digits to zero degrees, with lows below zero and wind-chills well below zero,” Baker said.

Another snow system is forecast for late Wednesday afternoon and night, he said. That will drop “maybe upward of an inch,” Baker said.

A third system that brings a chance for another 4 to 6 inches of snow is anticipated for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, he said.

With compaction of the snow, it won’t be quite 2 feet total, but “we’ll probably have some snow on the ground for a while here,” Baker said.