An unexpected winter storm that struck North Texas before daybreak Tuesday put morning commuters on ice, canceled flights and forced some schools to open later than normal.
Forecasters had predicted a slight chance of light sleet but had said that most of the precipitation should stay southeast of Dallas-Fort Worth.Oops."It's always a challenge to predict winter precipitation in North Texas," said Nick Hampshire, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Fort Worth. "It's always a fine line. If it had been two or three degrees warmer, we would have been talking about a rain event."Many parts of Tarrant County received as much as a half-inch of sleet and snow, the most significant icy precipitation since the Christmas Day storm, said Dan Shoemaker, another weather service meteorologist.But don't expect a repeat this morning. Promise, the weather service said.The day will dawn chilly, with temperatures in the mid to upper 20s, but the forecast high is about 50 degrees, and there is no chance of precipitation. An upper-level low-pressure system that caused the wintry event still lingered over North Texas Tuesday evening, but it was missing a key ingredient for precipitation, Shoemaker said."Now we have dry, cool air pushing in, rather than cool, moist air," he explained.Temperatures should warm into the upper 50s by the weekend before another cold front arrives in time for Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.But early Tuesday morning, the surprising sounds of thunder and sleet caught residents unaware.The lift from the upper-level low-pressure system took the moist cool air that was available then and pushed into a layer of instability aloft, "and that's when we had thunder," Shoemaker said.Streets and overpasses began icing up after 5 a.m. Five hours later, Fort Worth police had reported more than 40 accidents. Dozens of other wrecks were reported throughout the county.A few overpasses, ramps and bridges, including the Hulen Street bridge in west Fort Worth, were also closed for a time because of ice.Some businesses and school districts delayed their openings.At Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, 343 American and American Eagle inbound and outbound flights were canceled. American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller said operations returned to normal by lunchtime but said some flights were canceled Tuesday afternoon.A Southwest Airlines spokeswoman said 26 flights at Dallas Love Field were canceled but that operations returned to normal by 10 a.m.Parts of Denton and Collin counties got more precipitation -- and more serious traffic problems. And in Grayson County along the Texas-Oklahoma border, the office of emergency management reported that bridges and overpasses were "treacherous" Tuesday morning. Portions of I-35 in Denton and Cooke counties also had problems.Tuesday was actually the second straight day that North Texas commuters got a taste of wintry weather. On Monday, sleet and pellets of snow fell across the region, but it was too light to cause any problems.Tuesday's high was 39.Staff writers Domingo Ramirez Jr. and Bill Miller contributed to this report.Bill Hanna, 817-390-7698Twitter: @fwhannaHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
