Winter weather snows, blows through county
There were no low-temperature records set over the weekend in Mercer County. But it was cold. Don’t-even-poke-your-nose-outside-all-day cold. And with that cold, came snow. The snow began falling Saturday morning, with accumulations of a reported 4-plus inches in the Hazen and Beulah area by Sunday night. Shortly after Saturday’s sunrise, temperatures reached nearly 20 degrees. Though as the day went on, the temperatures fell … and fell … and fell. By Sunday’s 7:27 a.m. sunrise, the temperature was 21 below zero with a wind chill factor of 46 degrees below. Cleaning up the streets The Hazen city street crew has played this game before. After an early November snowstorm dropped nearly 10 inches of wet, heavy snow on Hazen, crews scrambled to clean streets – many times around vehicles that had been left parked alongside the streets. That time around, the crew’s problems seemed to accumulate as quickly as the snow – in terms of staff shortage, parking violations and the moisture-packed snow that melted and then refroze to the street in large, uneven mounds.
