Road conditions have declined in the Raccoon Valley Radio area since the snow started to fall.

According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, all of the state highways in Greene, Dallas and Guthrie Counties are completely covered with snow. The DOT reports that towing services are not recommended in Dallas County at this time. Additionally, the DOT says there was a crash on Interstate-80 near the DeSoto exit that has since been reopened to traffic.

Greene County Engineer Wade Weiss says the plow trucks started at 6am this morning removing snow on the paved county routes, while the maintainers were up and running at 7am on the gravel roads. He notes that wet snow came down first and when the precipitation changed to lighter snow, the wetter snow underneath has turned to ice. Overall, he says all of the roads have been cleared once and crews will remain out for most of the afternoon. Weiss adds that crews will be back out tomorrow morning as well, after the snow stops falling.

Thomas Blair, with the Dallas County Secondary Roads Department, reports that their crews were out at 5am with plow trucks on the paved county roads and the maintainers were on the gravel roads starting at 7am. He explains that they are applying a little bit of salt and a liquefied salt mixture to some of the more critical areas such as curves, bridges and controlled intersections. Blair points out that there are slick roads as well. He adds that crews will be out for a while this afternoon and will be back out tomorrow starting at 5:30pm.

Jefferson Public Works Director Dave Morlan says all routes within the city limits of Jefferson have been cleared once, after they started at 4:30am this morning. He states that they are going through a second pass of all routes for the rest of today and then will be back out tomorrow. He details that crews are using sand and salt for only the stop sign areas at this time.

Everyone is recommending motorists to not travel at this time as well. According to Iowa Environmental Mesonet, for the past 12 hours since 11am, an estimated 7.5 inches of snowfall has been reported in Greene County, whereas Guthrie County has seen as much as 5.5 inches of snowfall and western Dallas County is close to about five inches. Check out Raccoon Valley Radio for continued updates, as well as cancellations and postponements.