Winter weather and falling temperatures created dangerous conditions on roads Thursday, leading to multiple crashes around Massachusetts including an incident in Lexington that saw approximately a dozen cars slide off Route 2.
Video from the scene showed multiple vehicles in the median of the roadway around 11 p.m. Other vehicles were stopped in the area as emergency crews worked. State police said the incident was due to icing. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation said around 11:20 p.m. that all westbound lanes on Route 2 were closed between exit 127 and exit 132. There were no significant injuries, according to state police.
Among other incidents, crews in Brookline responded to a rollover on Summit Avenue. Video from the scene showed airbags deployed. Officials said the driver made it out safely, adding that weather was to blame for the crash.
Elsewhere, on the Mass Pike, an SUV careened into a guardrail.
In Westborough, an oil truck rolled onto its side on Eli Whitney Street in town. Officials said the driver in that crash suffered minor injuries, declining transport to a hospital.
Drivers speaking with 7NEWS said conditions were concerning.
“I just try to plan ahead when I can, and, if I have to be on the road, I just try to be super careful,” Darya Yudintseva said.
In a winter that has been more mild than many in terms of major snow events, plow drivers were busy in some places Thursday.
For those operators, having fewer drivers on roads this week and no school buses due to school vacations made the process of clearing the flakes easier.
Area crews pretreated roads with salt and removed slush as snow, sleet and rain moved in Wednesday night. Officials earlier in the day Thursday said they would be back at it overnight.
“It’s going to get cold out and we don’t want anything to freeze to the ground,” Andrews Pinard of Topsfield Public Works said.
Off area roads, many individuals in New England were busy digging out sidewalks and driveways Thursday.
At least one Topsfield teenager said she would prefer to have seen this snow fall outside of school vacation week.
“I was hoping we’d get a snow day out of it but, you know, it’s one of those things on vacation,” Abby Brady said.
Topsfield saw a measurement of five inches of snow at 12 p.m.
Where snow accumulation was lower further south, Essex County in Massachusetts saw some of the state’s highest observed totals, according to unofficial measurements from the National Weather Service. One such measurement clocked 5.8 inches of snow in Haverhill at 7 a.m. Thursday. Two separate measurements in Newburyport at 7 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. also recorded 5.8 inches.
Snow had blanketed many area communities as of Thursday afternoon, covering mailboxes, encasing cars, wrapping roofs and coating railings.
Temperatures are now forecast to fall heading into the weekend, with single digit low temperatures forecast in some areas on Saturday.
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