COLUMBUS, Ohio – Columbus saw only a stray flurry on Thursday, but parts of northeast Ohio were getting slammed with up to 12 inches of snow.
The National Weather Service reports that Mentor received more than 12 inches of snow by late Thursday, Painesville had 11.5 inches and Madison had 10 inches.
The Plain Dealer says the snow caused traffic backups for hours along Interstate 90 as vehicles became stuck or went sliding off the road. No injuries have been reported.
Some communities announced overnight parking bans.
Only a flurry or two fell here in Columbus, but the city is ready to keep residents updated on the progress of its plowing efforts.
A new website allows residents to monitor the progress of the city’s Snow Warriors and find out when their street is scheduled for plowing via their home computer, laptop or cell phone.
The website displays which streets have been treated and plowed within the previous 72 hours and users will see a color-coded map to indicate the plows’ progress:
Dark green: Streets treated within the past six hours
Light green: Streets treated within the past 12 hours
Dark purple: Streets treated within the past 24 hours
Light purple: Streets treated within the past 72 hours
Tan: Streets yet to be treated or beyond the 72 hour time frame
A crawl at the top of the screen will indicate how many trucks are currently plowing and treating streets and what priority level of streets they are working on.
The website will be updated once every 15 minutes during snow storms and for 72 hours after the snow stops falling.
By zooming in and clicking on a specific street, residents will see an information box displaying the date and time the street was treated and will also be able to click on any street on the map to learn the priority level of the street, and whether the responsibility to treat the street is the city’s or whether it is a private street or suburban street treated by non-city trucks.
Each priority level is assigned a specific color: Yellow for top-priority arterial streets with the highest traffic volumes, pink for second-priority streets that connect arterial streets with residential streets, and blue for residential streets.