CHELSEA, MASS. (WHDH) - Road crews in Massachusetts are preparing for a messy winter storm that could create hazardous travel conditions on Friday.
A winter storm warning has been issued for Eastern Franklin, Northern Worcester, Northwest Middlesex, Western Franklin, and Western Hampshire counties from 1 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, while the remainder of the state is under a winter weather advisory.
“Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions will impact the morning commute,” the National Weather Service said.
The Baker-Polito administration on Thursday urged non-emergency state workers to stay home and avoid traveling on Friday due to the expected flash freeze.
Rain will change to freezing rain and sleet after midnight then to snow, especially near the Vermont and New Hampshire border.
Most other areas are expected to get an icy coating. Light sleet and freezing drizzle are slated to linger into the late afternoon.
As the rain continued throughout the evening Thursday, crews struggled to pretreat the roads. Crews can only start putting out salt when the temperatures drop and the rain switches to sleet. That is where the potential for a flash freeze comes into play.
“It is honestly one of the worst types that we manage. Anybody in operational business has a difficult time with these particular kinds of storm because of the nature of them,” said MassDOT Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver.
At the massive salt pile in Chelsea, bulldozers could be seen dumping salt into trucks for transport across New England in anticipation of the storm.
Eastern Salt has been trucking out up to 12,000 pounds of salt a day, according to manager Cornelius Martine.
“It’s going to turn into more of an ice storm for tomorrow, so I think salt demand will be just as heavy, or heavier than it would be for a snowstorm,” said Martine.
Due to the nature of the storm, MassDOT officials said there is very little they can do proactively. They plan to have between 800 and 1,000 pieces of equipment out during the storm.
“Drivers need to be aware that at some point during this change over roads could become very icy quickly, and this is generally going to make for a horrible morning commute,” said Gulliver. “We’re really urging drivers to stay off the roads if possible.”
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