Motorists are playing it safe in the wake of Monday’s snowstorm.
No major wrecks were reported in the region as of Tuesday evening.
But the partially-melted surfaces froze solid overnight, causing another day of tricky driving on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Through Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service reported total snow accumulations of 13 inches five miles southwest of Sequim, 11 inches near the Lower Elwha Klallam tribal reservation, 9.7 inches just southwest of Port Angeles, 7.6 inches at Mount Pleasant and 1 inch seven miles west of Forks.
The Port Townsend, Chimacum and Port Hadlock areas each received about 4 inches of snow during the storm.
The National Weather Service said things will begin to warm up on Thanksgiving Day. The forecast calls for cloudy skies with a balmy high of 44 in the lowlands on Thursday.
“We have some light precipitation moving into the area on Thanksgiving,” said Dennis D’Amico, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
“There’s a chance it could start off briefly as snow.”
Many in the Forks area will welcome a warming trend after a night without electricity.
Clallam County Public Utility District spokesman Mike Howe said about 5,000 West End customers lost power shortly before midnight on Monday when a tree fell into a power line.
Electricity was restored at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The PUD reported small, scattered outages on Tuesday afternoon.
“Nothing real major,” Howe said.
Puget Sound Energy, which provides electricity to most of east Jefferson County, reported 376 outages in Quilcene and 82 in Port Townsend as of 5:55 p.m.
The State Patrol reported no injury wrecks as of Tuesday evening.
Port Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Brian Smith reported a dramatic decrease in wrecks Tuesday from Monday.
Port Angeles police had to stack calls on Monday, but on Tuesday, Smith said: “I don’t know of any accidents we responded to at all.”
“People did pretty well,” said Smith, who speculated that many people stayed home with Port Angeles schools being canceled.
“It looks to me that the plow and road crews did a great job last night,” he added.
“They worked all night, and you can see the result today.”
Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a flurry of wrecks during the height of the storm on Monday afternoon, including a nine-car pileup and two jackknifed semis.
Sheriff Tony Hernandez said Tuesday was “not even a tenth of what we saw yesterday.”
Hernandez said motorists largely heeded warnings to stay off the roads unless they had to travel.
“Today we haven’t seen much of anything,” Hernandez said.
Clallam County road crews will begin plowing and sanding at 6:30 a.m., County Engineer Ross Tyler said.
Crews focused on widening the plowed portions of the main arterials on Tuesday.
Tyler described a “spider web effect” in which crews focus on the major roads before spreading out to lesser traveled roads.
“For the most part — except for some of the little side roads off Blue Mountain and some of the upper mountain roads — the main roads are plowed and sanded, and that’s pretty much the story for the whole county,” Tyler said.
Plow crews will start over when the weather warms up and the compact snow becomes slush, Tyler said.
“We’re trying to watch our overtime and find a balance between the cost of overtime and our service to our customers,” Tyler said.
Clallam County declared a emergency for severe weather on Monday afternoon. The declaration made the county eligible for federal disaster relief.
County employees were given the option of arriving for work at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, but courthouse offices were up and running by 8:30 a.m., County Administrator Jim Jones said.
Jefferson County did not declare an emergency because its populated regions received less snow than Clallam County.
“We didn’t have anything unusual,” Jefferson County Emergency Management Program Director Bob Hamlin said.
Hamlin drove from Port Angeles to Port Townsend on Tuesday and said the roads were in “good shape.”
“As soon as the sun goes down, I think it’s going to get pretty slick,” Hamlin added.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.