The winter wonderland Polk County enjoyed for Snow Day 2025 turned into rain, freezing rain and now ice is hanging on trees and covering roadways across the whole of the region.
Long story short? Stay home and off the roads as much as possible and pray the power lines hold up.
The Winter Storm Warning concludes on Saturday morning based on NWS Peachtree City warnings still in place until 7 a.m. The snow that blanketed Polk County and the rest of Northwest Georgia this morning had a chance to melt some, followed by freezing rain and in some cases sleet to cover trees and roadways.
Winds that could gust as high as 15 mph, but with the weight of at least a tenth of an inch of ice on power lines and trees, this could cause outages to occur if branches and older trees unable to hold on fall down.
Already some impacts are being felt locally as 230 customers are without electricity in the Antioch area, and another 181 in the Rockmart area have had their power cut. Power crews are working to get customers restored as fast as possible per the outage website, but winter weather is causing widespread issues across the state.
A small number of homes in Tallapoosa, West Crossing, near Bremen and Buchanan are also out at this time. Over in Paulding County, around 590 customers are without electricity.
Most of the outages so far are centered around the metro Atlanta area, along with Carrollton (as of 6 p.m. 1/10/25)
Polk County EMA officials who had the Emergency Operations Center open through this evening noted that these conditions will also keep roadways covered in ice, and could also cause trees to block the path of travel.
EMA noted that just six calls for stranded motorists were fielded by midday as most remained inside and let Winter Storm Cora do her worst while hunkered down and cozy.
More potential for freezing rain overnight will add more ice across the area, and will make travel on Saturday morning a serious threat to the life and safety of those who attempt to get on the roads. Unless it is absolutely necessary, they continue to warn people to remain home and indoors.
For now, much of the precipitation that could cause further icy conditions to form is remaining over central Georgia and Metro Atlanta.
Daytime temperatures heading into Saturday provide a chance for some of the icy conditions to clear as highs get above freezing and into the 30s, but overnight tomorrow the lows are expected to dip down into the teens and likely to refreeze much of what was melted before.
Sunshine and a high heading into the mid 40s should clear away the remaining ice and snow by afternoon, though look for nighttime drops down below freezing to remain the norm for the next several days.