“We were fortunate that we didn’t get all the snow that they got south of us,” said Webster County Sheriff Luke Fleener. “Right now, the roads are in pretty good shape.”

After the snowfall ended, some of it began melting and refreezing on the roads, Fleener said, causing slick conditions.

“We’ve had a few semis sliding around, but we haven’t had any serious accidents,” he said. “We hope that continues. The wind is the biggest problem now. As it gets dark, it’ll be hard to see when the wind blows the snow across.”

U.S. Highway 20 and U.S. Highway 169 were both 100 percent ice covered, causing travel issues, according to Iowa State Patrol Trooper Paul Gardner.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Blowing snow created low visibility on U.S. Highway 169 on Tuesday afternoon.

Several semi-trailers jack-knifed on the slick highways and many cars slid off the road into ditches, but no injuries were reported in the Webster County area, he said.

“Down in southeast Iowa, where they got the brunt of it, Interstate 80 had some road closures and they had a lot of whiteout conditions,” Gardner said. “Up here we were dealing with wind and snow being blown across the roadways, but we didn’t have the amount of snow like southern Iowa did. So that helps keep the call volume down a little bit up here.”

Both Fleener and Gardner said there were fewer cars on the road than on a typical Tuesday.

“I think having no school cut down on the amount of traffic and then having plenty of warning helped people prepare for it,” Fleener said. “So not a lot of traffic on the roads other than business stuff.”

Though there was less traffic on the roads, the Iowa State Patrol remained busy throughout the day, Gardner said.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
A Webster County snow plow follows a truck on U.S. Highway 169 toward Otho on Tuesday afternoon.

“With this being our first real snowstorm, I think things went pretty well overall,” he said. “The people who are out there, they’re doing a pretty good job of maintaining control.”

The snowfall analysis provided by the National Weather Service shows about 6 inches of snow came down in the Fort Dodge area.

While the winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service out of Des Moines expired on Tuesday evening, another 1-2 inches of snow is possible around Fort Dodge today, according to the NWS. The Fort Dodge Community School District announced Tuesday afternoon that today would have a 2-hour late start for schools.

Frigid temperatures are also in the forecast for Iowa in the coming days, with wind chills expected to be well below zero this weekend, according to the NWS.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Wind gusts blow snow across 250th Street near Otho on Tuesday afternoon.

-Photo courtesy of Trooper Paul Gardner
A semi jack-knifed on U.S. Highway 20 near the exit for Iowa Highway 17 on Tuesday following significant snowfall.