Roadways could feel weather's chill

[TexasStooge]

By KIMBERLY DURNAN and LINDA LEAVELL / DallasNews.com

The weekend will be a mess of freezing rain, sleet and a slight accumulation of ice, but the slippery roadways are not expected to become a problem until late Friday or early Saturday.

Tara Dudzik, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the temperature was expected to reach a high in the upper 30s on Friday. The rain likely will start sometime around 6 p.m., but the temperature will not fall below freezing until between 9 p.m. and midnight.

The weekend forecast calls for light freezing rain mixed with sleet, with highs in the low 30s on Saturday and lows in the mid-20s. On Sunday, the highs will be in the mid-30s.

Dudzik said an accumulation of ice of less than a quarter-inch on the roadways was expected, enough to make them dangerous, particularly on bridges and overpasses.

The same wintry mix may persist Monday morning, she added, leading to possible delays in school openings before the system transitions to rain and the highs move into the upper 40s.

"I don't know that they'd close all day but maybe a couple of hours' delay," she said.

After a high of 85 degrees Thursday, the cold weather blew in, dropping the temperature to 41 degrees.

Allan Koenig, 36, of Dallas said the weather has been so bizarre, he set the thermostat to air condition his home, and then later switched to heat.

"It's rare we have a five- or six-hour period when we use both," he said, bracing himself against the wind and cold Friday morning as he pumped gas at the 7-Eleven on Mockingbird Lane and Abrams Road. "I don't know what to make of it. Yesterday my son was in shorts playing outside and today we are buttoning up our coats."

At the Starbucks in Dallas' Lakewood neighborhood, Loren Holt, 34, was bundled in a floor-length plaid wool coat.

"I love the cold weather," she said. "It's great. It's refreshing. We need something to blow the pollution out of town."

Drinking coffee while examining some mugs for sale, Judy Whalen of Dallas said she's not a fan of this winter's "extreme changes."

"My allergies have been crazy," she said. "Everyone I know has been sick with different illnesses, even those who never get sick. I don't think this is good for our health or psyche. Dallas can have extreme weather, but this is too extreme."

At a nearby table, Tony Wood and his coffee klatch complained that the warm winter was failing to kill the bugs that were sustaining the grackles. Then they decided the unusual weather pattern was the government's fault.

"I think our stupid government is shooting high-energy microwaves into the ionosphere and it's disturbing the jet stream," Wood said.

If the government is involved, it has chosen the worst possible days for crummy weather.

The only days that the National Weather Service has marked more than a trace of rain in 2006 have been Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Meteorologist Vick Corbelli explained earlier this week the systems that bring rain enter the region about every seven days at this time of the year. As spring approaches, the length of time between systems shortens to three to five days. By spring, the fronts with the "nasty thunderstorms" arrive every one to three days.

Unfortunately, the systems have been arriving on weekends.

The prospect of icy weather was disappointing news for Plano soccer youth, who are supposed to kick off their season Saturday.

The games are not canceled, but the likelihood of playing looks grim, meaning a "scheduler's nightmare" of resetting hundreds of match-ups, said Janice Williams, spokeswoman for the Plano Youth Soccer Association.

Taking into consideration the temperature, wind chill and field conditions, organizers will make the call Friday night or early Saturday and publicize it online and on the organization's telephone recording, Williams said.

"The parents dread it because they have to sit in the cold," she said, adding that the adults generally favor postponement. "The kids don't care because they are running around. It's truly the parents that suffer."

Another weekend event expected to involve thousands of Texans is the Freescale Austin Marathon. The Austin forecast also calls for freezing rain, but it does not to appear to be as severe as in North Texas.

Race director John Conley said 76 percent of the 10,000 to 11,000 runners in the half and full marathon live in Texas. Five percent come from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and 7 percent from Houston.

"The worst weather will be Saturday. People who are planning to drive might want to get an early start," he said.

As for Sunday, Conley said his weather experts say that the freezing rain likely will be in the Hill Country, but within the city limits the rain will be light and widely scattered. Skies will be overcast. The temperature will be about 32 degrees at the 7 a.m. start, warming to the 50s, and runners will have a tailwind of 5 to 7 mph, he said.

Last year, runners experienced 83 degrees and bright sun, which Conley said is far worse because "it's easier to make the adaptation to cold than it is to heat."

"My own feeling is it's going to be perfect for the run," he said. "From a marathoning perspective, Sunday morning should be as close to ideal for many folks as anything we've ever had."