As the region prepares for another onslaught of winter weather Tuesday night extending into Thursday, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland on Tuesday, Feb. 16, declared a state of emergency.

The latest forecast from the National Weather Service Memphis office calls for another 4-6 inches of snow. A winter storm warning was issued for Northeast Arkansas and the Missouri Bootheel. The rest of the Mid-South, including the Memphis metro area, is under a winter storm watch.

The snow and your car aren’t going anywhere

Despite Tuesday’s sunny skies, blinding against the white blanket of snow that did not melt under frigid temperatures, the new round of precipitation is expected to begin Tuesday night, according to the NWS.

It will continue Wednesday into Thursday, with “significant accumulations” of snow, sleet and freezing rain adding to snow already on the ground.

Travel conditions will be hazardous, and wind chill readings are expected to fall into the single digits Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. 

The latest simulated radar loop, showing expected timing of snow late this evening through early Wednesday morning. This snow will be a precursor to heavier snow over AR and TN, and sleet/and patchy freezing rain over north MS Wednesday afternoon and evening. pic.twitter.com/FY5C9AKtCN

— NWS Memphis (@NWSMemphis) February 16, 2021

Many grocery store shelves were bare or nearly bare Tuesday. Many other retail stores weren’t open at all, the parking lots populated only by tire tracks that had refrozen into icy ruts. 

Strickland’s state of emergency, meanwhile, paves the way for seeking federal emergency and disaster assistance, said city chief communications officer Ursula Madden. The declaration does not include a curfew or other contingencies associated with civil unrest, which is another use of an emergency declaration.

“Mayor Strickland has declared a state of emergency due to inclement weather before, in May 2017, when we had a really bad storm,” Madden said by email. “FEMA declined our request for funds.”

Public Works crews will continue plowing and sanding city roads for the next three days, with full resources focused on the next wave of the winter storm, the administration announced Tuesday evening.

“This is a continuous operation,” the evening update reads. “The city is using all available assets to manage the sever winter storm including contracting for 6 additional snowplows for a total of 14 snowplow equipment.”

The additional equipment is being contracted through the powers in the emergency declaration signed by Strickland Tuesday afternoon.

It brings the number of brine trucks to six, along with 16 sand and salt trucks.

The emergency declaration, effective immediately, specifically authorizes the city and its departments to “seek any and all necessary federal and state funding to facilitate the response to the emergency.”

It also allows the city to suspend its normal purchasing and procurement procedures to buy equipment, materials and supplies as well as to secure services more rapidly.

And Strickland specifically authorized emergency management officials to use emergency powers and authority.

Disaster declarations are estimates of damage already done and depend on state and federal approval.

The city has been under a separate state of emergency since March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The terms of that state of emergency included a curfew at one point.