Winter weather is expected to move across the Kansas City area this weekend, likely bringing freezing rain, snow and ice.
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the Kansas City metro. Ice accumulations on Saturday are expected to be less than an inch, Saturday night could see up to eight inches of snow.
In a release from the Kansas Adjutant General's office, Angee Morgan with the Division of Emergency Management said residents should avoid travel, but those who must be on the road should make sure they have an emergency travel kid stocked with food, water, blankets and a shovel.
Salt trucks and chemical sprayers have been plying highways and thoroughfares in the Kansas City metro since early Friday.
Wess Murray, Superintendent for MoDOT Kansas City District, expects the storm to move right through the center of the district, generally along I-35 and from the southwest.
His trucks are spraying chemicals on pavement to make snow easier to plow.
“It’ll start, help break that bond between snow and ice and the pavement is what it’ll do so that’s why we try to get that pre treatment down,” says Murray.
Most troubling to Murray is a forecast for up to a quarter inch of ice before the snow.
Kansas City has 36,000 tons of salt on hand — 3,000 more than was used last year — to cover 8,400 lane miles.
Similar treatment work is underway with KDOT snow fighters in the Kansas side of the metro. On Kansas highways in the region, 13,000 tons of salt are on hand.
KDOT spokesperson, Kim Qualls, said sand is also stocked for use in more rural parts of the region.
