City of Belle Public Works Department employees have been out since 6 a.m. this morning, working to clear roads as weather stations predict between one and five inches of new snowfall.

Thursday afternoon, Mayor James (Pudd) Mitchell said crews laid the groundwork for the forecasted weather.

“They salted everything real heavy,” he said. “The streets are in pretty good shape, considering. A lot melted off (Thursday), but I’m sure stuff is going to freeze tonight.”

Crews were watching the weather on Thursday night to determine if they would need to be out in the evening hours or if plows could wait until morning.

“We are going to wait and see what the weather brings,” Mitchell said on Thursday. “If we get a whole bunch tonight, the guys will probably come in early and start plowing. If it’s snowing tomorrow morning around 5 or 6 a.m., we will probably come in at the regular time. We will talk to each other tonight. If it’s still snowing like cats, there’s no sense in trying to plow it off.”

The winter weather was forecasted between 6 p.m. on Thursday and 6 a.m. on Friday. However. Snowfall came in late Thursday night and the predictions extended the winter weather advisory to 1 p.m. on Friday afternoon.

The winter weather has given the city the opportunity to utilize its new dump truck with snow and ice attachments. The 2017 Ford F550 was purchased online from Fairview, Kan.

“It’s doing great,” Mitchell said. “The spreader is working well on it. It’s doing a good job. We ain’t had any problems with it yet. (Crews) have thrown a few cinders. We hit the roads pretty hard yesterday with the cinders. We will keep the roads as best we can.”