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Widespread black ice is expected throughout the area Wednesday night through the Thursday morning rush hour, the weather service said. Melted snow is refreezing as temperatures fall into the teens while more freezing rain and snow form an additional glaze of ice.
"Black ice will appear -- it can pop up anywhere," Gov. Dannel Malloy said in a news conference. "We expect ice to be a problem throughout the state tonight and in the morning. Get an early start on your way to work tomorrow and drive slowly."
Slippery conditions are expected on roads and sidewalks as the freezing drizzle continues until about 11 p.m.
Plows will continue clearing highways and secondary roads statewide into the night, Malloy said.
"When it gets down into the teens, it's going to be much more difficult to move this snow," he said of work to clear shoulders of roads. "Municipalities should be trying to widen those roads right now."
A total of 632 state Department of Transportation trucks were on the roads Wednesday evening, he said, down from a high of 837 earlier in the day.
State Police received 1,200 calls for assistance. There were 69 "somewhat serious accidents," Malloy said, with about 12 injuries, none serious.
"There were a lot of spin-outs, cars off the roads," he said.
The plows were clearing a bit more snow than the forecast 3 to 6 inches. Here are some snowfall totals as of 2 p.m. from the National Weather Service:
- Danbury: 9 inches
- Norwalk: 8 inches
- Ridgefield: 8 inches
- Darien: 8 inches
- Weston: 8 inches
- New Canaan: 6.3 inches
The snow is worse, though, in Pennsylvania, where Malloy said 650,000 people are without power.
"We are dispatching crews to help with the power outages there," he said.
Once the black ice clears Thursday morning, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 26 degrees.
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