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Jack Frost finally made a visit to Manchester and Coffee County last week, bringing with him freezing temperatures and several inches of snowfall that lasted throughout the week.

Meteorologist Mark Rose with the National Weather Service in Nashville said the Manchester area received about six inches of snowfall last week.

“It is somewhat unusual just because of the amounts of snow that we got,” he said. “Normally we don’t get snowstorms, individual snow events that produce that much snow at once.”

Rose said the cold weather that came into the area, with temperatures dipping down into the single digits, is also unusual for Middle Tennessee.

“We had several stations well below zero (Wednesday) morning which is an unusual occurrence,” Rose said.

While the weather was extremely cold, it was not enough to break any records, he said.

“Records this time of year are very low,” Rose said. “Nashville’s record is minus 10 or minus 11, we got down to minus one. So we didn’t break any records that I am aware of it is just unusually cold.”

Manchester Police Chief Bill Sipe said Manchester Police Officers were kept busy helping motorists that became stuck due to the snow.

“We have had several cars that they will get off in the ditches or where the snow builds up on the side of the road and they can’t maneuver from there so we have had several pull-outs and push outs our officers have been involved in,” Sipe said. “So we just have been very vigilant and being on our side streets and our thoroughfares in the event that somebody needed some extra help.”

Sipe said the Manchester community has experienced different snow and ice events throughout his career with the police department.

“We do plan for these kind of things and we try to meet the challenges that come along each day,” he said.

Sipe said the department has additional on-duty officers that will assist and they will also work with other agencies in the Coffee County.

“We just want everybody to be very careful,” he said. “Sometimes when the sun comes up it melts the snow on the roadways and then it refreezes at night and in the morning so you are now riding on a sheet of ice rather than a snow packed street.”

Coffee County Emergency Management Director Allen Lendley said when a storm is predicted, his agency tries to get ahead of the game by monitoring National Weather Service storm multiples, speaking with representatives from the state and working to inform members of the Manchester and Coffee County community as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“Winter weather is probably the hardest weather to predict because it all relies on temperature as to whether it is going to be rain, sleet or snow,” he said.

Lendley said Emergency Management works to inform people of precautions they should take in the event of severe winter weather, such as utilizing a carbon monoxide detector in conjunction with a kerosene or gas heater and providing updates on road conditions.

“Just trying to prepare everybody to lay in for the duration,” he said. “Normally it only lasts three or four days and then we are done and back to the 50 (degree temperatures).”

Lendley said the winter weather had the most significant impact on emergency services, the Highway Department, Public Works Department and the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

“Especially those first couple of days, they kind of have a handle on it now but with as fast as the snow was falling they couldn’t plow quick enough,” he said. “This is from my understanding, we only have like six or seven Tennessee Department of Transportation plow trucks in the county.”

The lack of equipment meant snow removal had to be focused on the major interstates in Coffee County, with some state roads like Highway 55, Highway 41 and Highway 127 taking secondary priority.