Snow and ice cause serious travel problems in Nebraska
AccuWeather's Tony Laubach reported live from Nebraska on Jan. 8 as wintry weather caused numerous crashes along highways and interstates.
Transcript
00:00 Accuweather meteorologist Tony Lombak is alive in Lincoln, Nebraska with more on these developing storms.
00:07 Tony, I know when you bust out the big orange Accuweather jacket, it is cold. How are you doing out there?
00:14 Well fortunately it's not really brutally cold here. That is some good news for us here.
00:22 Temperatures in real fields right around 30 degrees, obviously cold enough to support the snow.
00:27 And that's what you're looking at here behind me in Lincoln, Nebraska on the west side of town.
00:31 Behind me you see US-6, behind that I-80, and I-80 has been the trouble spot really all across central and eastern Nebraska.
00:39 We're going to take you to the tiny little burg of Beaver Crossing, Nebraska.
00:43 This would be off to the west of Lincoln where I-80 has just been a mess all day.
00:48 You're seeing this shot from the overpass there at the Beaver Crossing exit.
00:51 You see the snowplow coming in with the state trooper there assisting those folks that spun out there on the roadways.
00:56 It's been dozens of these spin-outs, slide-offs.
00:59 A lot of times what we're seeing is happening here is the trooper arrives on scene,
01:03 he helps the people get out of the car, and then he takes them to one of the nearby towns
01:07 and they just have to kind of sit there and wait it out until a wrecker is able to come and get those cars free out of the median.
01:13 Again, dozens, it's been countless numbers of those that we've seen all up and down the interstate.
01:17 It's been a messy drive, especially earlier this morning when the really heavy snow started to set in.
01:22 We saw the freezing conditions on the parts of the interstate were actually completely ice-covered.
01:27 Speed limits there generally run between 70 and 80 miles per hour.
01:30 Folks were doing 30 and 40.
01:32 Even that was a little bit too fast at times.
01:35 Here in Lincoln, it has been snowing pretty heavy for most of the morning.
01:39 We've lightened up a little bit, kind of in a lull right now,
01:41 and I think it's time we take a measurement with the old yardstick here.
01:46 Let's see what we've got going on here right now.
01:48 This is a flat area.
01:49 We're sitting right about three inches of snow here in the Lincoln area on the west side of Lincoln.
01:55 Further out to the west, we're talking upwards of eight and nine inches of snow.
01:59 I don't think we see these snow here done yet, Bree.
02:03 I think we could easily double these numbers if that second band comes in,
02:06 because this storm is still in Kansas.
02:08 It's going to work its way up here through the evening,
02:10 so heavy snow and stronger winds in store for tonight.
02:13 Those were some slick moves there, slick stick moves, that is.
02:18 Hopefully you'll be able to maybe measure a little bit more snow as we head into these next few hours.
02:24 Yes, Tony Lovac, everyone, the master of the measuring stick.
02:29 All right, let's take you out to radar right now,
02:32 because, hey, we are tracking some significant and severe weather here
02:36 further to the south on the warmer sector here of this storm.