School delays announced as storm nears

A mixture of light snow and sleet, turning to freezing rain, could make for a hazardous commute Thursday morning in the Triangle.

Wake, Durham, Johnston and Harnett public schools will operate on a two-hour delay.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory from 4 a.m. to noon Thursday for the region and is urging people to be prepared for slippery roads and limited visibility. Though little or no accumulation is expected, the impact on traffic could be significant.

Forecasters are uncertain exactly when the bad weather will arrive. The earlier the sleet and freezing rain start, the messier the roads will become, said Brandon Vincent, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Raleigh.

Bridges and overpasses could become iced over, causing the greatest problem for drivers.

"It's bad timing as far as the rush hour is concerned," Vincent said. "That's one of the things we're obviously concerned about."

The current forecast calls for a brief period of snow or sleet shortly before sunrise, transitioning quickly to freezing rain and then turning to all rain about mid-morning. "People will get to see a wide variety of different kinds of precipitation," Vincent said.

The Triad and other areas west of the Triangle are likely to see more ice, prompting the Weather Service to issue a winter storm warning for that section of the state.

In the Triangle, meanwhile, several consecutive mornings of lows in the 20s have helped set the stage for icing on Thursday morning.

The state Department of Transportation already has pretreated roads and bridges in western and central North Carolina with a salt-and-water solution known as salt brine. The solution sticks to roads and keeps ice from bonding to the pavement during the first few hours of a storm.

As precipitation starts to accumulate, the DOT plans to use salt to treat roads. The department currently has 150,000 tons of salt in storage statewide.

The governor's office is reminding people they can get information on road conditions in the morning by going to www.ncdot.org and clicking on "Travel Information." Do not call 911 or the Highway Patrol for road conditions, because those lines must remain open for emergencies.

Schedule changes for Triangle area bus systems, including TTA, CAT, Chapel Hill Transit, C-Tran, DATA and NCSU Wolfline, will be posted online at www.gotriangle.org.

Area school systems plan to post weather-related schedule changes on their systems' Web sites.

The low Thursday morning is expected to be 30 degrees, with a high during the day of 38 degrees. By Friday, the high is expected to reach 50 degrees, but the temperatures will drop again over the weekend. Look for a low overnight Saturday of 16 degrees.