Roads that were wet throughout the day are turning icy, slick and possibly dangerous.
Shawano County Highway Commissioner Grant Bystol explains his department’s tool to combat the conditions.
“We have trucks outfitted with pavement temperature sensors on our [highly traveled] state roads,” Bystol said. “We’re gonna be monitoring them, we know the freeze up is coming so we’ll be ready to hit them right away.”
Crews have been on the roads since 3:30 this morning and have been monitoring them all day. As for the above average temperatures this week, it was a different story in the ground.
“The ground temperature’s are a lot colder than the air temperature,” he said.
Thursday morning’s temperatures in the northwest corner of the county made for slick conditions while central Shawano was spotty with ice patches. Bystol said there wasn’t much of an issue with ice in the east and southeast. Some of the untreated town roads were a little slick but it was “nothing out of the ordinary.”