Drivers can expect slow commute

SALT LAKE CITY — Motorists should plan for snowfall clogging up the roads and traffic into Wednesday morning.

"We're expecting the storm to continue … into the morning," Utah Department of Transportation spokesman Adan Carillo said Tuesday. "We just ask the public to be cautious, to drive carefully, to slow down. Plan ahead and plan on being late a little bit."

But as the snow stops Wednesday morning, the cold air will set in, bringing a brief pause to inversion and poor air quality, National Weather Service forecasters said.

Carillo said crews applied a brine solution to state roads before the storm moved in Tuesday, which he said helped.

"Everybody that needs to be out there in a plow is in a plow right now," Carillo said Tuesday afternoon, adding that crashes will hamper plow operations and motorists should give plows "plenty of room."

The heavy snowfall in southeastern Utah led UDOT to close state Route 95 south of Blanding to the Colorado River on Tuesday. As of Tuesday night, Utah Highway Patrol trooper Cameron Roden said the road hadn't reopened. No other road closures were in place Tuesday night.

Southeastern Utah also received the most snowfall with a foot of snow in Blanding in San Juan County and about 8 inches in Monticello, according to National Weather Service forecasters in Salt Lake City.

Utah's capital city had relatively minor snow build-up with less than an inch. Layton and other Davis County cities received about an inch of snow.

UHP responded to crashes throughout Tuesday and reported one fatality in Grand County. The majority of the crashes involved property damage or were slide-offs, Roden said. The one fatality was an out-of-state driver who crashed on I-70.

Troopers reported 127 crashes in Salt Lake and Utah counties, with 25 minor injury crashes and 12 slide-offs as of Tuesday evening. Crash totals for other parts of the state were not immediately available. Multiple accidents on Bangerter Highway backed up traffic for a couple hours, Taylorsville police said about 5 p.m. Tuesday.

"It's like a skating rink out there," Taylorsville Police Sgt. Rod Lowry said.

There were multiple accidents scattered in southern Utah, and Davis County reported a large number of accidents, as well, though few had serious injuries. In Tooele, where snowfall reached 2.5 inches, no major accidents were reported.

Salt Lake-area ski resorts, including Alta and Brighton, received about 4-5 inches of snow, but cities around Logan and Bountiful received minimal snowfall, accumulating about an inch. The Salt Lake bench area also received about an inch in most spots, according to the National Weather Service.