Snow that began falling late Thursday afternoon coated county roads and city streets and forced cancellation of classes today in both local public school systems as well as at Walters State Community College.

The snowfall also caused Thursday night's meeting of the Baileyton Planning Commission to be canceled and led to postponement until Monday of today's scheduled cases in Greene County Criminal Court and Greene County General Sessions Court.

A winter weather advisory remains in effect until 6 p.m. today, according to the National Weather Service in Morristown.

"Snow showers will linger through Friday afternoon," the advisory said. "Total snow accumulations of one to two inches will be possible across the valleys by this evening, with locally higher amounts possible on the highest mountain peaks.

Friday night's low temperature was projected to be 12 degrees with a wind chill factor of 5-below zero to 5-above zero.

To make matters worse, temperatures plunged overnight.

At 7:30 a.m. today, the University of Tennessee Research and Education Center on East Allens Bridge Road recorded an overnight low temperature of 10 degrees, according to Rob Ellis, the director.

He said the center also recorded an inch of snow between 5 p.m. Thursday and 7:30 a.m. this morning.

The Greeneville Federal Bank's time and temperature display on West Summer Street indicated the temperature in Greeneville at 8 a.m. was 6 degrees while The Greeneville Sun's Web site showed the 8 a.m. temperature to be 9 degrees.

At Tri-Cities Airport in Blountville, according to the National Weather Service, the low temperature this morning was 3 degrees.

Greeneville Public Works Director David Martin said Public Works employees spread salt and "chat" (fine gravel) on city streets overnight and were continuing to do so this morning.

Martin said the single-digit temperatures were reducing the effectiveness of salt in melting snow. "We're at the mercy of the temperatures," he said. "And the high today is only expected to be in the low 20s. So there isn't a lot of melting taking place."

Martin also said he believes Greeneville was "lucky" not to have received more than the approximately 1.5 to 2 inches of snow that fell overnight.

"What we got isn't going anywhere and not much would be moving today if we had gotten more snow," he said.

Greene County Road Superintendent David Weems said this morning that County Highway Department employees had worked throughout the night spreading salt and plowing snow-covered county roads.

But, like his Greeneville counterpart, Weems said the low temperatures were limiting the effectiveness of the salt in melting snow and ice.

"We changed crews at 7 a.m. and we're back at it again," Weems said.

He warned that because today's high temperature is expected at best to be in the low 20s, county roads will remain snow-covered and slippery.

Local temperatures, he said, are not expected to be much above freezing before Monday.

State highways in Greene County still had some "patches of snow and ice" this morning, according to Ben Price, a Tennessee Department of Transportation maintenance supervisor in Knoxville.

"All state highways will be clear by the time we go home today," Price said, noting that TDOT crews had "pre-treated" state highways on Tuesday and Wednesday with a brine solution that is designed to lessen, if not prevent, the bonding of snow and ice to pavement.

In addition, he said, TDOT crews had worked throughout the night on state-maintained highways, including U.S. 11E and U.S. 321.

Below-freezing temperatures associated with the snowstorm resulted in water-line breaks in Greeneville, including one on Union Street that sent a large quantity of water down Union Street onto South Main Street near the former Andrew Johnson School.

The Greeneville Water Department has had numerous water line breaks because of freezing temperatures, according to Ricky Trantham, a department supervisor.

The breaks have been "one right after the other," since 3:30 a.m. Thursday, he said.

"It hasn't been like this in five or six years," he said.

At 8:15 a.m., Water Department crews were repairing the water line break at Union Street.

Other water-line breaks, which have been repaired occurred in the areas of Railroad Street, Summer Street, Delta Circle, behind EastView Elementary School, at Tusculum View Elementary School and on Charles Street, according to Trantham.

A total of 14 Water Department employees have been working to repair the broken lines, he said.

Also during the overnight snowstorm, the Newmansville Volunteer Fire Department responded to two fires.

Jonathan Williams, the department's chief, said this morning that about 9 p.m. Newmansville firefighters responded to a chimney fire at 1401 Morrison Road. "Getting there was a chore," Williams said.

He noted that the renter of the house, which is owned by Greene County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, had managed to extinguish the fire before firefighters arrived.

"We made sure that the fire had not spread into the attic or the interior of the walls," Williams said.

At about 4:30 a.m. today, Williams said, Newmansville firefighters were dispatched to assist the Limestone VFD in fighting a fire in an outbuilding on Cockatiel Road off Martin Road in Washington County.

"We sent a tanker and manpower and it took them about 30 minutes to get there because of the road conditions," Williams said.

Greeneville police and the Greene County sheriff's deputies reported few traffic accidents overnight.

But a Sheriff's Department dispatcher noted that one accident that took place about 3 p.m. Thursday on Main Street in Mosheim had involved a Greene County school bus that was carrying students.

No injuries were believed to have taken place, the dispatcher said. But the accident was investigated by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. A report on that collision had not been filed as of this morning.