Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RALPH ANSAMI
Ironwood — The sounds of plow trucks and snowblowers continued in Ironwood on Wednesday afternoon as the Gogebic Range was digging out from more than a foot of snow.
Although the lake-effect snow was light, heavy drifting from north winds and temperatures in the 20s made driving treacherous.
Area schools canceled classes as the snow picked up overnight and the drifting made it difficult for the plow crews to keep up with the storm. Most governmental meetings and social organization activities scheduled for Tuesday night were also canceled, or rescheduled.
Hurley School District Administrator Chris Patritto said the decision to call off classes there was made around 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. “The wind really picked up,” he said, adding that he snowblowed around 16 inches from his driveway on Wednesday morning.
Around the same time Tuesday evening, an Ironwood Public Safety Department officer notified the department of public works to send out the sand trucks because streets were getting slippery.
The storm may have taken a mental toll on at least one motorist. The Ironwood woman was seen driving down McLeod Avenue around 12:40 p.m. Wednesday in a line of vehicles, hanging a Santa Claus out of the driver’s side window. The Santa dummy was manipulated with a string or rope.
Shortly after, she was pulled over by a Gogebic County Sheriff’s Department deputy on Cloverland Drive, possibly to face some sort of citation.
The weather station at the Gogebic-Iron Wastewater Treatment Plant off U.S. 2 recorded 10.5 inches of snow up to 7 a.m. Wednesday and the snow came down heavy after that.
The Tuesday morning total amounted to .52 inch of precipitation for the 24-hour period.
Ironwood’s seasonal snowfall stood at 94.5 inches as of Wednesday morning, behind the 110-year average of 125.6 inches.
The snow on the ground total increased to 28 inches.
