Winter Weather Pushes Across Kentucky

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) _ A wintry mix of snow and ice coated parts of western Kentucky early Thursday, causing vehicles to slide off highways and prompting a number of schools to close.

Snow and ice accumulations ranged from a trace to a half-inch in far western Kentucky.

``All of our roads are extremely slick and hazardous,'' said Jerry Beasley, a Kentucky State Police dispatcher at Mayfield.

Forecasters warned that a second round of precipitation in the region later Thursday could bring ice accumulations of a quarter inch, along with possibly 1 to 3 inches of snow.

``This is something we're going to have to keep an eye on,'' said Rachel Trevino, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Paducah. ``We have a lot of moisture coming in.''

State police at Mayfield received reports of two dozen accidents within two hours because of slick roads, Beasley said. ``Most of them just slid off the road,'' he said.

The accidents resulted in two minor injuries, he said.

A low-pressure system combined with an abundance of moisture in the air, creating the wintry mix.