(WJW) — A winter storm watch across Ohio’s snowbelt, which started Wednesday, begins at the end of what has been a record holiday travel season, with 90% of people returning from holiday destinations doing so on the roads.
The Ohio Department of Transportation has dispatched some 200 of its snow plows across Northeast Ohio, expecting to treat and plow roads starting in advance of the storm, which is expected to drop as much as 4 to 8 inches of snow on parts of Lake , Geauga and Ashtabula counties through Thursday and as much as a foot of snow from Friday through the weekend.
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“It’s looking like it’s going to mostly focus on that primary snowbelt area — so, Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula, eastern Cuyahoga counties — and mostly south of I-90, which is a little bit different than the last big snowfall that we had in the snowbelt areas that hit in the northern [part] of I-90,” said ODOT spokesperson Amanda McFarland.
It was during a busy holiday travel season in 2013 that a winter storm contributed to a pileup of 29 cars on Interstate 90 , sending eight people to local hospitals on Christmas Eve.