VIDEO: Inclement Weather Expected To Cause Icy Roadways And Bridges

COLUMBUS, Miss, (WCBI)- With temperatures expecting to drop over night, most of our area will experience a flash freeze.

Road conditions are clear and dry now, but they won’t be that way for long.

The flash freeze will result in icy roads and bridges for drivers.

“A flash freeze is when we have warm temperatures, and then something comes through to make those temperatures drop, so in this case it’s a very cold arctic front,” said WCBI meteorologist Jacob Dickey. “Our temperatures will drop 30, 40, 50 degrees by the time we go from Monday night to Tuesday night.”

These are images of icy roadways in North Mississippi from this past Friday.

Tuesday’s road conditions will look similar to this.

When the flash freeze happens drivers won’t be able to tell when the water on the roadways turn into ice.

“Any water that might be on the roadways almost instantaneously turns to ice, that’s the concern that we have with this,” the meteorologist explained. “We will skip the slushy mess in the middle, and what happens is we will see liquid on the pavement, and almost instantly when a flash freeze happens it turns into ice. Black ice is called black ice because it often times it the same color as the pavement. You won’t know there is black ice in front of you on the road until you hit it and you feel your car start to lose control.”

With temperatures dropping into the teens, the hazardous road conditions could stick around for Wednesday.

“We will see the cold arctic air last for a couple of days, by Thursday we will start to warm things back up and we are back on our way to the 60’s over the weekend,” said Dickey. “It is a short duration event, but the time that we remain below freezing on Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday, those road conditions will not improve until we are able to get those temperatures back closer to 32.”

With the inclement weather and icy roadways that we’re expected to see, Mississippi Department of Transportation has trucks prepared and on stand-by to treat the roads and bridges if necessary.