Staff Photo by Carey O'Neil/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Chattanooga Public Works crew supervisor Sterling Lund detaches a brine hose from the back of a 1,000 gallon tank truck. The truck will head out to coat roads with the brine 12 to 24 hours before a snowfall.School kids can likely put down their pencils and pick up their mittens Monday morning as a storm is likely to blast the Chattanooga area with 4 to 6 inches of snow.
WRCB-TV Channel 3 meteorologist Nick Austin said he expects to see light, fluffy snow come down constantly from after midnight Sunday through Monday night.
"Good for sledding, building snowmen, snowball fights, all that stuff," he said. "Bad for driving."
But Chattanooga doesn't have the worst of it. Austin said he wouldn't be surprised to see more than 6 inches in higher-elevation areas south of Chattanooga and in Northwest Georgia.
"The way it looks now, it's doubtful any kids will be going to school Monday, and maybe even Tuesday," he said.
Sunday night snow Northwest Georgia: 5 to 7 inchesSoutheast Tennessee: 4 to 6 inches
Chattanooga Public Works employees spent all Friday preparing for the storm, mixing up about 23,000 gallons of brine used to coat streets 12 to 24 hours before the storm and repurposing construction equipment to clear the roads.
Chattanooga Public Works Assistant Director Tony Boyd said road crews' jobs should be done a day or so after the storm hits, but depending on snowfall and road conditions, it could take as long as four days.
But the long job shouldn't deter the construction-equipment-turned-plow operators.
"These guys are troopers. They love it," Boyd said. "It kinda turns into a competition over who can clear their area before the other."