Sunset in Sidney, Nebraska, where a major snowfall closed 25% of Interstate 80
Major highways in Nebraska including Interstate 80 began to reopen on Friday after a March winter storm dropped record-breaking amounts of snow that forced highways and schools to close on Thursday.
The heavy snowfall made for challenging driving conditions Thursday night into Friday, leading to multiple accidents on those roads that remained open.
“There’s an interstate under there somewhere,” the North Platte, Nebraska, National Weather Service office said on social media, posting a photo of a snow-covered I-80 on Friday. “That interstate also happens to be closed as of [Friday morning].”
“Most roads are snow and ice packed across southwest Neb,” the North Platte NWS office reported on social media before I-80 was shut down. “Snow is so deep that it is causing issues for vehicles exiting I-80 off ramps,” it added.
While all of the closed roads have now reopened, the Nebraska Department of Transportation still advised caution “as roads could still be slick.”
“Travel is very difficult in southwest Nebraska this morning after the heavy snowfall, the Nebraska State Patrol said in a post on social media.
Interstate 80 westbound opened without incident Friday afternoon but a crash on I-80 eastbound led to one section near York being shut down while the accident was cleared.
The Department of Transportation had closed a 128-mile (206-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 80 between Ogallala and Kearney– roughly 25% of the interstate’s 453-mile (732-kilometer) overall length from the Wyoming border east to Omaha – in various sections throughout the day on Thursday. Some of the first sections to be shutdown were between westbound between Kearney and Paxton and eastbound between Sidney and Gothenburg.
The DOT also called Highway 30, which was closed from Sidney eastbound, “impassable” between Ogallala and Gothenburg.
The agency’s messages on social media were replete with highway closing notices
The National Weather Service on Friday reported an all-time 24-hour record of 17.4” (442 mm) of snow at North Platte, a city in western Nebraska that is the state’s 11th most populous.
The daily snowfall record for North Platte fell on Thursday for the second time in 14 months when the total snowfall reached 15.3” (389 mm) on Thursday, making it the snowiest day since recordkeeping began in 1874. The previous record was 13.9” (353 mm) on January 18, 2023.
Construction for Interstate 80 in Nebraska began in 1957. Built along the pathway of the Great Platte River Road, the highway follows the same route as many historic trails including the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails.
Interstate 80 is the only Interstate Highway to travel from one end of Nebraska to another, as the state has no major north–south Interstate route.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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