A small snow shower that dropped less than a half inch on the Boise area late Monday night caused some major headaches for drivers on Interstate 84.
Both directions of Interstate 84 between Boise and Mountain Home were closed because of slippery road conditions that caused multiple slide-offs from about 11 p.m. Monday to 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. The westbound lanes between mileposts 59 (near Boise) and 90 (Mountain Home) were closed until 4:40 a.m., until one lane was re-opened to traffic, according to Idaho State police.
Idaho State police say the reason the westbound closure lasted so long was because of a semi crash east of Boise just after 10 p.m. Monday. A 46-year-old Arizona man lost control of the semi, which then jackknifed across both lanes before stopping. A 51-year-old Arizona man, who was in the truck with the driver, was standing on the road a short time later and helping direct traffic around the semi when he was hit by a 2008 Saturn sedan.
That man was taken by air ambulance to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center for undisclosed injuries. It wasn’t until around 7 a.m. that traffic flow was restored in both directions. ISP officials say the I-84 corridor between Boise and Mountain Home was still icy and slippery as of 8 a.m. and are asking drivers to slow down and increase stopping distance.
Treasure Valley commuters woke up to some slippery city streets Tuesday morning. Ada County dispatchers reported a handful of slide-off type of crashes and traffic was slower than usual on many arterial roads.
The culprit for all this was a small snow shower that moved through the area between Boise and Mountain Home just before 10 p.m. Monday night. The National Weather Service measured 0.3 inches of snow (or graupel in some areas) fell in about a half hour at the Boise Airport. At the time, the temperature was just above freezing, but dipped lower as the night went on, which caused the icy conditions on Interstate 84.
That snowfall was the last precipitation Boiseans should expect for a while. The forecast for the rest of the week calls for partly sunny skies, with highs in the upper 40s earlier in the week moving into the mid 50s by the weekend.
