© Michael Hamtil / StaffA lone pedestrian crosses the snowy, windswept DART tracks on Bryan Street Wednesday morning in downtown Dallas.
From 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Dallas police responded to more than a dozen accidents on North Central Expressway and LBJ Freeway. Althought most of the exposed freeway roadways are clear, ice remains dangerous underneath bridges and overpasses.
Conditions on highways deteriorated throughout Wednesday as sleet and snow fell - up to 3 inches in McKinney, which was among the hardest-hit spots locally. A winter storm warning is in effect through 6 p.m.
School officials were already making plans for the freezing weather overnight.
Frisco, McKinney and Allen ISDs said they would open on a two-hour delay on Thursday, while other area districts are so far opting to wait until Thursday morning to make a decision.
Southern Methodist University , which had been open during the day, canceled Wednesday night classes at its Dallas and Plano campuses. A decision regarding Thursday will be announced in the morning.
But even though afternoon temperatures will struggle to reach the freezing mark, Thursday should be the end of the brutally cold weather across the Dallas area for the next week to 10 days, forecasters said.
"It will definitely get nice into the weekend," said Eric Martello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. "We'll see some light west-southwest winds and temperatures in the 60s. And this will be a distant memory."
First, though, North Texas has to push through the last of the cold, a weather pattern that has brought freezing rain, sleet and snow to the region three times since Feb. 1. Since the start of the month, the average temperatures have been almost 14 degrees below average. The normal high temperature for the period should have been just over 57 degrees, and the low a bit above 36. Instead, the actual average was 44.4 degrees for the high, and 22 for the low.
An expected low of 11 at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Thursday morning - the coldest temperature in 15 years - will cap off the streak. The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill advisory and a hard freeze advisory through Thursday morning because of the cold.
Denton and McKinney could be chillier still. Winds, which gusted through the day Wednesday, will settle down, Martello said. But conditions will make it feel as if it's zero in many places Thursday morning.
And road conditions, especially on neighborhood streets, will remain difficult in the morning, though sunny skies should help with melting later in the day, even with the cold temperatures.
Wednesday's weather came ferociously in the early-morning hours, with temperatures plunging from 48 degrees at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport at midnight to 16 degrees at 7 a.m. Rain gave way to sleet and then snow, the thin base layer of ice causing more than 140 accidents on area roads.
D/FW and Dallas Love Field were open, although both reported cancellations (nearly 400 by American and American Eagle at D/FW and 30 to 40 by Southwest Airlines at Love Field).
All of highways in the region were open, but some HOV lanes were closed including southbound I-35/US 67, the southbound ramp on Interstate 35E Stemmons, Interstate 30E (RL Thornton) and Interstate 30W (Tom Landry). Accidents snarled traffic on North Central Expressway at the Lovers Lane exit and on Interstate 635 at the Miller/Royal exit. A jackknifed semi also blocked the left three lanes of eastbound Interstate 20 east of Interstate 45.
The Texas Department of Transportation had its entire fleet of trucks - 160 in Dallas, 140 in Fort Worth - out treating roads. But driving was so precarious that officials said motorists should play to give themselves an extra hour to complete their commute.
Dallas police responded to more than 140 accidents - - 56 of them major.
"It's horrible out there right now," said Lt. Scott Bratcher, a traffic unit commander. "There's ice everywhere. People are getting stuck. People are sliding backwards on hills and bridges. It's just not good. It doesn't seem as heavy as they had predicted originally, but there's enough ice on the road that it's making it difficult. There's not enough snow to give you any traction at all. Just about all our people are tied up doing something."
"If you don't have to go somewhere, don't," Bratcher said. "If you do have to drive, go slow, keep it pointed it the direction you want it to go. Don't try to do anything suddenly in your car because you will slide. If you have to go somewhere and your route includes bridges and hills, you might want to rethink it because you might not make it.
"If you do get stuck in your vehicle, hopefully you have a phone to call for help. Wreckers are going to take a long time to arrive. I'd have blankets and water and stuff in my car just in case you get trapped in there for a while. If you could avoid it, I wouldn't go anywhere today."
The Dallas County Sheriff's Department reported working 60 accidents, 21 of them major crashes, since 6 a.m., spokeswoman Kim Leach said.
"Our courtesy patrol has been going from stranded motorist to stranded motorist back to back ... helping them out," she said.
Most area school districts, including Fort Worth, Arlington, Denton and Dallas, canceled classes, as they were forced to do for four days during last week's bitter weather. In Frisco, Superintendent Rick Reedy said the threat was too great to hold classes.
"It seems so certain that there will be accumulations," he said. "It's something we couldn't ignore."
The icy road conditions forced Meals on Wheels to once again cancel hot food deliveries to about 3,300 homebound seniors in Dallas County.
Meals on Wheels volunteers delivered nonperishable meals earlier this week in anticipation of the latest storm, said Robert Smith, spokesman for the Visiting Nurse Association, which runs the Dallas County program.
The meals were not delivered for four days last week because hazardous conditions made it impossible for volunteers to prepare and deliver them. Smith said others pitched in to help the homebound seniors.
"A number of our Meals on Wheels clients had friends and neighbors check on them last week," he said.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit said buses ran on their regular schedules. Red and Green line trains reported delays of up to an hour early Wednesday. DART ran trains up and down its lines overnight to keep tracks and overhead power lines clear, in hopes of avoiding the massive breakdowns that plagued the rail system last week.
Passengers who caught the Red Line closer to 8 a.m. reported on-time trains and moving buses, and were relieved that things had improved since last week. Some stations' platforms appeared to be treated for ice but were still slippery in places.
A DART police officer was at the Pearl Street Station, a move suggested by DART board member Mark Enoch at Tuesday's meeting to discuss last week's service problems.
Terry Bailey, who hopped a train in downtown Garland, said she got stuck for an hour between Garland and Jupiter Road. She suggested a new name for DART: "Dare Attempt to Ride the Train."
But Corbin Perkins, who was riding the Red Line, said he wasn't deterred by last week's problems on DART and hardly noticed any delays. Rather, he was just trying to stay warm.
"I'm trying to stay Zen and ignore the cold," he said.
The Trinity Railway Express ran on time between Fort Worth and Dallas.
An Oncor spokesperson said there were fewer than 100 power outages reported in North Texas around 5:30 a.m.
No "rolling blackouts," enacted last week across Texas to conserve power, were anticipated.
But all of that could change, forecasters said, as the cold roars through. There was a report of up to 1,000 people without power in the Rowlett area.
Texas Christian University in Fort Worth was one of few institutions to decide early that it would close Wednesday. TCU put out that word on Tuesday night. The University of North Texas canceled classes.
At Dallas City Hall, just enough City Council members - nine - showed up to start today's meeting. But apart from a handful of speakers and city staff, the council chambers were empty.
University Park's court was closed, making things particularly sticky because UP only holds court on Wednesdays. If you have a court date, call to reschedule.
In Garland, the municipal court was closed. Garbage and recycling collections were suspended, and the Granville Arts Center and Atrium and the Plaza Theater were closed.
Garland Water Utilities did not dispatch crews to deal with minor leaks or nonemergencies. Customers with sewer backups, no water or major leaks requiring emergency shutoff were given priority.
Temperatures varied wildly this morning, depending on which side of the front one was on.
Just before 4:30 a.m., for example, it was 42 in Mesquite - and 16 in Decatur.
A motorist on Interstate 30 near Cockrell Hill said the temperature dropped from 41 to 34 in a matter of about five minutes shortly before 5 a.m.
Tanya Eiserer, Michael A. Lindengerger, Rudolph Bush, Jessica L. Huseman, Kim Horner, Lauren Michaels and Michael E. Young contributed to this article.
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