An unseasonably cold storm dumped nearly half a foot of snow across the Toledo area Tuesday night and early Wednesday, and while most of that was gone by late Wednesday, the extreme chill was expected to linger into Thursday.
National Weather Service forecasters posted freeze warnings for much of the region because of temperatures predicted to drop into the mid-20s by sunrise Thursday. The unusual cold posed a hazard to both tender vegetation and to exposed plumbing, the agency warned.
And while the snow that fell overnight was a thing of beauty for many as the sun rose Wednesday, it contributed to scattered power outages and was cited for a traffic death in Defiance County.
GALLERY: Spring snowfall in Toledo area
At Toledo Express Airport, the official reporting station for the city, 5.2 inches of snow fell, with all but 0.2 inch occurring before midnight. The 5-inch snowfall Tuesday was a record for the date, and also was the heaviest snow Toledo has ever received this late in springtime, topping 4-inch events from May 9, 1923 and April 23-24, 2005.
According to Jay Berschback, chief meteorologist at WTVG-TV Channel 13, snowfall amounts elsewhere in Lucas County ranged between 5 and 7 inches. The highest amount reported by National Weather Service spotters for the Toledo area was 7.5 inches near Waterville.
With clouds blanketing the area until just after sunrise, local temperatures only dipped to about 30 on Wednesday morning. But forecasters said lows into the middle 20s were likely with clearer skies Wednesday night into Thursday.
Temperatures were likely to be below freezing for eight to 10 hours across most of southeast Michigan, the National Weather Service’s Detroit office in White Lake, Mich. said, while the North Webster, Ind., office said the mercury could go as low as 23 in parts of its coverage area that includes far northwest Ohio as well as northeast Indiana.
“The recent warm-up and relatively early start to the growing season leaves vegetation more susceptible to the freezing temperatures,” the Detroit office’s forecasters remarked.
Even in areas east of Toledo where the National Weather Service’s Cleveland office did not issue a freeze warning, forecasters said a heavy frost was likely Thursday morning.
Amy Stone, agriculture and natural resources educator at the Ohio State University Extension in Lucas County, said the coming freeze is a concern in regard to apple trees and peach trees because their flowers are open.
“So,” she said, “the growers should start small fires within their orchards to help increase the temperatures.”
In Defiance County, the Ohio State Highway Patrol cited slippery road conditions as a factor in a Ney, Ohio man’s death Tuesday night.
Lyle Smith, Jr. 54, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 10:45 p.m. crash on U.S. 24 about a half-mile east of Jewell Road, troopers from the patrol’s Defiance post said.
The Jeep Wrangler Mr. Smith was driving westbound about a half-mile east of Jewell Road in Richland Township went out of control and crashed into a tractor-trailer stopped on the right shoulder, troopers said. The truck driver, who had stopped for weather-related maintenance, was not injured and the truck’s hazard lights were activated, troopers said.
In Toledo, city spokesman Ignazio Messina said the Division of Streets, Bridges, and Harbor placed its truck drivers on snow shifts at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. The first shift spread about 350 tons of de-icing salt by midnight, after which the midnight shift put another 500 tons on city streets. Crews had pre-treated bridge decks with salt brine starting Monday afternoon, Mr. Messina said.
Multiple area residents on their way to work reported seeing tree branches downed by snow, some of them in bloom.
The Ohio Department of Transportation reported Wednesday that the snowfall has delayed a litter pickup day originally scheduled Thursday in honor of Earth Day, because ODOT was “back to snow and ice operations.” Area ODOT employees and Adopt-A-Highway groups had been invited to help ODOT maintenance crews pick up litter Thursday, which now won’t happen until weather conditions allow.
Rebecca Dangelo, an ODOT spokesman in Bowling Green, said her district had about 16 salt trucks out early Wednesday in the greater Toledo area.
"We always expect a late-spring snowfall so this is not unusual. Our crews have to remain flexible to transition from snow-and-ice to pavement repair and litter pickup back to snow-and-ice when needed," Chris Hughes, ODOT’s district deputy director in Lima, said in a prepared statement.
Toledo Edison said that at the peak Wednesday morning, about 900 customers were without electricity. Lauren Siburkis, a spokesman for Toledo Edison’s parent company, FirstEnergy, said most got their power back within an hour, while by Wednesday afternoon restoration efforts continued for about 20 Lucas County customers where trees or branches felled by “wet, heavy snow” had torn down power lines.
Forecasters expect area temperatures to rebound all the way to about 50 during the day Thursday after the predicted chilly start. Toledo’s normal temperatures for April 22, based on a 30-year-rolling average, are a low in the low 40s and a high in the low 60s.
First Published April 21, 2021, 3:04 p.m.
