Another snow day ahead for some students

Wake, Chatham, Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, Orange, Person, Vance and Warren county schools, as well as Nash-Rocky Mount schools will be closed for a third day.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Johnston, Harnett, Lee and Wayne counties will operate on two-hour delays for students. Moore County schools will open one hour later.

School administrators said even though much of the snow has been cleared from main roadways, they are still concerned about muck and snow and ice on side streets and secondary roads not yet cleared.

"When you look at some of those at some of these neighborhoods where kids are walking to school, the sidewalks aren't clear yet," Wake County Public School System spokesman Michael Evans said. "We don't want those hazards to be out there. We think one more day (is necessary)."

Evans said many school parking lots have not been plowed and that administrators hope classes will be back in session by Thursday.

Road crews on Tuesday, meanwhile, cleared and treated roadways still covered with remnants of the weekend weather event that dropped up to 8 inches of snow and ice across the area.

The state Department of Transportation said it treated or plowed all secondary roads in Wake County and that crews will start clearing subdivisions on Wednesday, which will be sunny and warmer. Temperatures are expected to be in the low- to mid-50s.

As the snow melts, however, meteorologists are already eyeing a storm system headed to the area this weekend.

“It looks like the vast majority of the storm will be in the liquid form,” WRAL chief meteorologist Greg Fishel said.

Fishel said there is a chance that some small snow flurries could creep in on Saturday morning before things dry out.

There was a glimmer of hope of relief from the winter weather Tuesday – Groundhog Day.

Sir Walter Wally, North Carolina's version of the famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, did not see his shadow Tuesday, giving North Carolinians hope for an early spring.

Phil, on the other hand, saw his shadow before chilly revelers in Pennsylvania, meaning winter will last another six weeks.