DeKALB – With the region’s first significant snowfall of the season here, DeKalb County Engineer Nathan Schwartz said Monday a dozen workers were expected to begin plowing county highways early Tuesday well ahead of the morning commute.

A winter storm warning is in effect from 8 p.m. Monday through midnight Tuesday for most of the region, including DeKalb County, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasts predict wind gusts up to 35 miles per hour and 7 to 11 inches of heavy, wet snow to fall between Monday and Tuesday night. Hazardous road conditions are expected during Tuesday’s morning and evening commutes, according to the report.

[ Season’s first big snowfall starts Monday night; northern Illinois could see 7-11 inches ]

Schwartz said he expects his crew of a dozen snow plowers will start sometime Tuesday morning, once snow has accumulated on county highways. They aren’t responsible for city roads or state highways – and the tollway is a whole different or deal entirely, Schwartz said – but the DeKalb County Highway Department is still responsible for plowing almost 190 miles of roadway.

“Now that’s what we call center line miles. So most of our roads are two lanes, so you’d have to multiply that by two to get how many miles we actually drive to cover the entire county highway system. Of course Peace Road is a multilane road, so there we’re driving it four lanes, and then plus the center bidirectional turn lane. So it’s really five passes to clean off Peace Road completely,” Schwartz said.

With a dozen snowplow routes, it typically takes about three hours to plow all DeKalb County Highway roads, Schwartz said. He expected crews to start plowing area roads between 3 and 4 a.m. Tuesday, with hopes of getting a full route plowed before morning commuters test the roads.

“A lot of times we will complete the route in approximately three hours, give or take. So then the last little bit of road we hit is freshly plowed, but then at the start of the route it’s been three hours or so since a snowplow has been on there, so then we start back over again,” Schwartz said.

Snowfall in excess of one inch per hour is possible late Tuesday morning into Tuesday afternoon, and visibility may be as low as under a ½ mile, according to the National Weather Service. Considering the predicted snowfall rates, it’s possible for a DeKalb County highway to be covered by an inch or more of snow, and still have been plowed as recently as possible, Schwartz said.

“Sometimes we hear people say ‘Hey, a snowplow hasn’t been on my road.’ Well, chances are you were on that road sometime after the plow, and so the snow has re-accumulated, whether falling snow or blowing snow. But we are on all of our roads throughout the entire storm, and then the clean up too, afterward.”

DeKalb County has between 4,000 and 4,500 tons of salt in stored, ready to help alleviate icy roadways.

Schwartz said county highways aren’t covered in salt while snow is falling because it would be plowed up within hours. However, DeKalb County High Department workers do salt curves and intersections with stop signs and stoplights. The Illinois Department of Transportation announced Monday its crews were also out pretreating roads ahead of Tuesday’s storm.

Bridges along DeKalb County highways have been pretreated with liquid salt for over the past month, Schwartz said.

“We will spray the salt on bridge decks because bridge decks have the air underneath it, not the warm earth, so the bridge decks will freeze before the roads do. So even if there’s no snow, sometimes a little bit of dew will cause the bridge decks to become icy,” Schwartz said.