The difficulty students inevitably always face returning to campus after winter break has been made even worse this year as the South faced freezing temperatures and snow, causing many potential travel delays.
The State reports that, although the worst of the winter storm is already over, freezing temperatures are expected to last through Monday in the Midlands. According to Tony Petrolito of the National Weather Service, Columbia received trace amounts of snow on Saturday and experienced its lowest temperature on Sunday morning at 24 degrees.
As a result, there were cancellations around the Midlands, including the rescheduling of high school athletic events and the closing of Riverbanks Zoo on Saturday.
The small amount of snow was undoubtedly the most exciting part for Southerners, but the real concern for those traveling was ice. The threat of black ice was present Saturday night into early Sunday as temperatures dropped, and moisture from the 1.6 inches of rainfall from Friday and Saturday lingered. Department of Transportation crews monitored roads and bridges using salt on Saturday, WIS reports.
The Upstate received the most snow with some counties reaching four to six inches, according to Chris Horne of the National Weather Service in Greenville. This led to flight cancellations and delays out of the Greenville Spartanburg International Airport.
Many students from parts of the Upstate chose to return to campus in anticipation of poor road conditions due to the weather.
“I know a lot of the roads other than the highway were pretty bad,” third-year exercise science student Meghan Martin said about Spartanburg.
Although no major issues or accidents were reported related to the storm, SCDOT focuses on utilizing de-icing materials on road in the Upstate as a precaution, according to Andy Leaphart, a department spokesperson.
Leaphart encourages people to remain cautious until temperatures rise later in the week, possibly into the low 70s.