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Photo by Andy Atkinson With schools closed, 11-year-old Adam Cole (left) and his 15-year-old sister, Esther, find Holmes Park in Medford a great place to make snow angels. Snow likely to turn into ice Tuesday's 4 inches nearly doubles record By PAUL FATTIG Before hopping into your car this morning, picture a demolition derby with shredded fenders and shattered windshields. Better yet, think crash test dummies. "With all the melting snow and slushy streets, people should be very careful -- a lot of that snowmelt is going to freeze up," warned Mike Stavish, senior forecaster for the National Weather Service office at the Medford airport. Following a snowfall that buried a nearly 80-year-old record in Medford Tuesday, temperatures were expected to plunge into the mid-20s in the Rogue Valley overnight, creating dangerous black ice for drivers this morning. The 4 inches of snow recorded during the 24-hour period ending at 8 a.m. Tuesday at the Medford airport was nearly double the 2 1/2-inch record established on Feb. 9, 1922, Stavish said. An army of snowmen popped up on lawns, folks skied on city sidewalks, snow angels left their imprints and the devilish whine of tires spinning on wet snow could be heard from Ashland to Williams. But police reported relatively few car crashes, power outages or toppled trees from the record snowfall. Power outage reports started surfacing just after 5 a.m. Tuesday, but power was knocked out to fewer than 1,000 customers, Bill Smithee of Pacific Power said. Snow-laden trees falling into power lines were the culprit, affecting customers in Phoenix, Talent, East Medford, Central Point and Jacksonville. As of about 4 p.m. Tuesday, a couple of dozen customers were still without power, mostly on Dark Hollow Road and Comanche Drive south of Medford and on Little Butte Creek, said Smithee, who said he expected all power to be restored Tuesday evening. One leg of a 7,200-volt power line fell on the car of a woman backing out of her driveway Tuesday morning on Wabash Avenue, but the woman did the right thing by staying in her car and was unhurt, said Jim McKee, battalion chief for the Medford Fire Department. McKee said trees and limbs were down all over town, as well as television cable lines. A fallen tree blocked the entrance to the Medford Post Office's customer service center on Biddle Road, delaying mail delivery for three hours Tuesday morning. And for the second time in five years, all postal vehicles chained up, causing additional delays. The sheriff's office and Medford police took reports of a few noninjury accidents and complaints about kids throwing snowballs. There was also a call about an extra-large snowman in the road, which a deputy moved. A 16-year-old girl was knocked unconscious when her sled hit a tree on the Southern Oregon University campus in Ashland just before noon. She was taken to Ashland Community Hospital. Crater Lake National Park reported 141 inches on the ground Tuesday, above the average of 96 inches for the date but well below the record of 252 inches set in 1982, spokesman John Miele said. High winds and drifting snow also shut down Highway 140. Interstate 5 over the Siskiyous was closed off and on Tuesday. Late Tuesday, chains were required on all vehicles except four-wheel drives. Mount Ashland received 12 inches of snow Monday night over a base of 131 inches at the lodge and 184 inches at the top. Although Tuesday's overnight snowfall was a record for the date, it fell short of the most snow ever during a 24-hour period, the weather service's Stavish said. That record was set Dec. 11, 1919, when 11 inches were recorded. The storm dumped nearly half a foot at the south end of the valley but only an inch at the north end, Stavish said. But the snowfall was enough for some local residents accustomed to driving to the mountains to play in the snow. In Phoenix, Paul Andrade, owner of Andrade Custom Auto, and John Brewer took a break from working on custom cars Tuesday morning to create a custom snowman atop the roof of their shop bordering Main Street. "It's just for fun," Andrade said before applying the finishing touches. "It doesn't snow very often down here." In east Medford, Mike Huard and his 15-year-old son Trent pulled their snowmobiles out of the garage and went snowmobiling in their neighborhood. They can usually be found on their snowmobiles at higher elevations. "I think this is the most snow we've had since we've been up here," Mike Huard said of his Eagle Trace neighborhood. "Dad," Trent interjected, "this is the most snow we've had since we've been in Medford." But for many Medford residents, the snow meant more work, not play. Ann Wright and her 12-year-old son, Ryan, were shoveling tracks for the tires of her car so she could go to work. Their weapons of choice were a shovel and a rake. Ryan stopped for a moment, looked around at the snow, and concluded that he was glad to have a day off from school. "It's kind of fun when you're not shoveling," he said. The cold snap isn't expected to last, Stavish said. Temperatures tonight should drop to the low 30s, then gradually warm a bit, raising the snow level to 4,000 or 5,000 feet on Thursday and Friday. And Mother Nature may give Rogue Valley residents a wet kiss for Valentine's Day. "We've got a storm coming in late Friday afternoon that will bring a fair amount of moisture," Stavish said, adding it will fall in the form of rain at lower elevations. (Mail Tribune staff writers Julie Swensen and Wendy Siporen contributed to this story.) Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA