Will Charlotte roads be frozen during Tuesday commute? Here’s the latest prediction

Forecasters are making an ominous prediction: All the melting snow and sleet will refreeze overnight, creating widespread black ice on roads in the Charlotte region.

So when exactly do motorists need to worry about being on the roads? After sunset Monday? Around midnight? Rush hour Tuesday morning?

The Weather Channel has broken down the hours when local roads will be most dangerous, and the timing of the refreeze couldn’t be worse.

Temperatures will start falling below freezing at 3 a.m. Tuesday and stay in the 20s until 9 a.m. Those six hours perfectly overlap with the morning rush hour, promising Tuesday morning could be as bad as anything we’ve seen so far in this winter storm.

During that period, it will be as cold as 26 degrees, says The Weather Channel.

There’s only a 10 percent chance rain and snow will be falling at that time, the channel says.

However, the National Weather Service is warning we could see “patchy freezing fog” in its place before 10 a.m, when temperatures will rise above 32 degrees. (The high Tuesday will be 44 degrees, says the NWS.)

“We expect a widespread black ice problem in the morning,” National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Moore told The Charlotte Observer. “We’ll be issuing some advisories about that later today.”

Monday is predicted to stay cloudy, which means melting won’t start as quickly in areas where snow piled up along the roads, says the National Weather Service.

That means areas north of Charlotte -- where more snow fell -- could see the worst of the black ice, Moore said.

However, the snow, sleet and rain that continued to fall Monday in Charlotte could make things just as bad in southern Mecklenburg County, he added.

Steve Lyttle contributed reporting resources to this story.

This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 12:12 PM.