Drivers be warned: Fog could reduce visibility this morning

Roads are a mess: Clinton Hameline, of Precision Lawncare in Flint, spent the morning today plowing the parking lots of automotive suppliers in Sterling Heights.
From: http://www.freep.com

Fog in southeast Michigan could drop visibility to a quarter-mile, the National Weather Service said this morning. 

The fog is expected to last until about 11 a.m.

About 16,000 DTE customers were without power at 9 a.m., according to the company. DTE reported 13,000 customers without power overnight, which dipped to 1,000 customers as of 6 a.m., according to DTE. 

A mix of snow and freezing rain closed hundreds of schools and left roads a mess early today, but a warm spell is in store for metro Detroit today and Tuesday.

All winter weather advisories and warnings ended at 6 a.m, according to the National Weather Service. But icy road conditions closed school across metro Detroit, including the Detroit Public Schools, Eastern Michigan University and many others. Classes at EMU are scheduled to resume as scheduled at 12:30 p.m.

“Temperatures are climbing above freezing, so it’s over now,” National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Richter said from the agency’s White Lake Township office just after 6 a.m. “We’re going to have a nice warming trend – nice but brief.”

The storm left 13,000 DTE Energy customers without power overnight, but service was restored to all but about 1,000 by 6 a.m. today, DTE spokesman Scott Simons said.

Simons also said that a substation problem in Waterford this morning is responsible for an outage affecting about 6,000 people.

The ice and snow is expected to start melting today as temperatures rise to the mid- to upper-40s by this afternoon, Richter said. The expected high is 47 degrees, with a 50% to 60% chance of rain this morning, increasing to a 70% chance of rain tonight and all day Tuesday. Tonight’s low will only drop to 43 degrees before temperatures soar to 57 degrees on Tuesday with a 90% chance of rain, Richter said.

“Normal high is 32, so you’re talking 25 degrees above normal in late January,” Richter said. “That is impressive.”

Temperatures then dive back down starting on Wednesday, when a high around 48 becomes a low of 22 Wednesday night. Thursday’s high is only expected to be 24 degrees – with an overnight low of 12 then a high on Friday of 19 degrees, he added.