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Independent/Barrett Stinson Walking into the blowing snow, Kevin Serrano makes his way to school at Grand Island Senior High Tuesday morning along South Greenwich Street. The blowing snow made all types of travel slow going on Tuesday while contributing to a number of accidents around the area. Independent/Barrett Stinson A wave of snow covers a roadside sign as a Nebraska Department of Roads snowplow clears a northbound lane of Highway 281 on Tuesday afternoon. Click Thumbnails to View

"We got 30 mph winds with some snow that's kind of delaying our treatment because if we put any chemical down, it melts and refreezes," Scott Randall, Nebraska Department of Roads supervisor for District 4, said Tuesday during the height of the storm.

According to Mike Moritz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hastings, a band of snow along a line from Holdrege through Hastings to Aurora hit those areas especially hard.

By about 6 p.m. Tuesday, Hastings reported 5.7 inches of snow, while Grand Island had 2.5 inches. Moritz expected those totals to increase overnight as snow continued to fall.

Temperatures fell into the upper teens in the afternoon Tuesday, with north winds averaging 20 to 30 mph.

The city of Grand Island declared a snow alert/snow emergency, beginning at 8 a.m. Tuesday as road conditions became hazardous for city drivers heading to work.

The snow emergency was lifted at 5 p.m. Tuesday and city crews began plowing residential areas about an hour later. The city's Public Works Department expected all those streets to be cleared early this morning.

Randall said what was giving road crews the biggest fits were the black ice conditions on area roads, which were covered by the blowing snow.

He said 15 crews were out on the roads Tuesday, trying to keep ahead of the worsening conditions. They were out at 5 a.m. Tuesday for the start of a 16-hour work day. Randall said today's schedule will be for 12 hours.

"They are pretty resilient as long as we get a little rest in between," Randall said. "These guys can run 12- to 16-hour days. They are pretty good at what they do."

And those road crews haven't caught much of a break so far this winter as compared to recent years' open winters in the area.

"It seems like we are out there almost every week," Randall said.

Those 16-hour days can be stressful on the crews, Randall said. Along with battling low visibility and icy conditions, he said the drivers always have to be alert for other drivers on the road.

"The blowing snow makes it even more of a challenge," Randall said.

The snowy conditions made for icy travel on Interstate 80, too. At least two accidents involving vehicles sliding off the roadway into the ditch and median occurred about 15 minutes apart just before 2 p.m. Tuesday. According to a Nebraska State Patrol dispatcher, no one was seriously injured in either incident.

Another accident, this one involving an injury, was reported on Highway 30 in Alda at about 7:30 p.m.

Intersections in Grand Island also proved treacherous as the wind blew snow into drifts and traffic packed snow on roads, making them slick.

The rule of the road, according to Randall, for the road crews is to just go slow and drive defensively.

He said drivers approaching a plow truck should slow down, stay behind about 100 feet and not try to pass them.

Moritz said that skies will be sunny today, with a high in the low 20s and calmer winds

There will be a chance of light snow on Wednesday night, with a low of about 18, he said, before temperatures warm into the 30s beginning Thursday.

That mild front will be followed this weekend by what else? a surge of cold air.

"(It's) a little bit of a roller coaster for the remainder of the week," Moritz said.