BY DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

City and state officials are preparing for a another winter storm to hit southcentral Kentucky with as much as six inches of snow starting Friday.

“It’s happening: The confidence is very high in the storm occurring,” National Weather Service Louisville Lead Forecaster Evan Webb said.

This “fairly significant winter storm” will impact the Bowling Green area Friday, Webb said. NWS Louisville scheduled a warning for 3 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday.

The region was also hit with snow, ice and bitter cold last weekend.

“The bulk of the snow will fall late morning, midday, through the afternoon and evening hours, so the afternoon and early evening is kind of the heart of the event,” Webb said. “Then, Friday night into early Saturday morning, the snow tapers off.”

Currently, confidence is high that snow will be the sole precipitation type, he added. Shane Holinde, outreach manager for Kentucky Mesonet, separately corroborated with that detail and others.

“It looks like the significant snow with the Friday system will start roughly around daybreak for Bowling Green and along I-65,” Holinde said. “The heaviest snow will likely go from mid-morning through Friday afternoon. It will affect the evening rush negatively.

Snow should taper to flurries from west to east Friday night, and by the time all is said and done, anywhere from 3 to 6 inches of snow is expected across southern Kentucky.”

Webb corroborated that storm total snowfall amounts for the Bowling Green area to be 3-6 inches; he expects the average total for snow in the state to be around 4-5 inches.

Bowling Green Public Works began pre-treating roads Wednesday morning, doing hills and bridges first, and then the other routes as able, BGPW Director Andy Souza said.

BGPW has also made a plan for its crews Friday that’ll entail splitting its team in half to prepare for providing around-the-clock service if needed.

“We’ll just see how it goes, but the plows are ready, we already have salt on hand, we put the blades on (the plows) today, so I think the city is about as prepared as we can get,” he said Thursday.

The department has also salted ahead of the storm for some recent fire department training, which required Bowling Green Municipal Utilities to open some fire hydrants.

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 3 crews are conducting “anti-icing operations in some areas today,” according to a release from the agency Thursday.

Wes Watt, public information officer for the cabinet district, said that anti-icing will be done on the “A” priority routes. These “A” routes comprise interstates, expressways and U.S. routes, he previously told the Daily News.

The top priority “A” routes in Warren County and Bowling Green are Interstate 65, Interstate 165, the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Expressway, U.S. 31-W, U.S. 68, U.S. 231 and U.S. 31-E.