It was the snow storm that sublimated, at least in much of Emporia and the surrounding area.
“It’s actually sublimation — basically something that’s frozen that just evaporates,” said Craig Gold of the 49 Storm Team.
“The problem was there was too much dry air towards the surface. What happened was, the snow was evaporating before it hit the ground.”
Gold was in Emporia Thursday afternoon for a weather report.
“It was coming down at a pretty good clip at one point,” he said.
Emporia received almost two inches of a predicted seven to 12 inches of snow. Hartford received 6.5 inches, Waverly had eight inches and Melvern received six inches, Gold said.
Most postmasters in area towns said this morning that the freezing rain and ice on Wednesday created more problems than yesterday’s snowfall. Many of them praised road maintenance workers for their work in opening snow-covered streets and highways and snow-drifted gravel roads.
“Our little maintainer driver made it all the way around, so the roads are pretty clear,” said Betty Rhoads, postmaster at Neosho Rapids. “We got quite a bit of snow; I’d say probably six to eight inches.”
Road crews were out during the night in the Hartford area, Postmaster Amy Wilson said.
“Even my gravel roads, the road grader had been through and graded the drifts,” she said. The snow continued until after 10 p.m. Thursday and some areas were still slick for drivers.
“Mail will go through,” Wilson said. “It will probably be a slow day.”
In Madison, about 20 miles south of Emporia, four to five inches of snow caused heavy drifting in some rural areas.
“Out on the country roads, the drifts are kind of bad in some places,” Trudie Rhodes, postmaster, said. Most of the streets and roads round Madison were “not bad,” she said. “People are getting around fine. It’s just got to be slow and take it easy.”
At Burlington, drifts were 18 to 20 inches high, according to Postmaster Bob Dunn.
“We’ve probably got about eight inches of snow and there’s quite a bit of drifting that’s gone with it,” Dunn said. The snow came in about a five-hour period beginning around 1 p.m. Thursday. “There’s going to be some places where the boxes are plowed shut and we can’t get to them, but we’re going to hit everything we possibly can. That’s our normal procedure.”
East-west roads were difficult to drive on Thursday. About an inch of ice and sleet fell on Wednesday to complicate driving. Dunn saw several cars in ditches on Wednesday and heard of a rollover accident south of Burlington.
Northeast of Emporia at Osage City, Postmaster Sharyl Bolyard said the town received an inch or two of snow.
“It quit here about a quarter after 2,” she said. “But we did have a lot of ice from Wednesday. The streets are just ice-packed right now.”
Maintainers were on the streets early this morning in Olpe, cleaning up from a snowfall of about five inches.
“”They’re out cleaning them now,” said Kathy Steinke, postmaster. “It’s looking good and it’s going to be a good day.”