ALPENA — While linemen work diligently restoring power in Northeast Michigan, thousands of people are still left in the dark with another storm on the way.

A second winter storm was expected to begin Tuesday night, bringing with it one to three inches of snow, another round of freezing rain, and wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour, Meteorologist Jim Keysor from the National Weather Service in Gaylord said.

The storm has the potential to seriously hamper power restorations in the Alpena area and potentially cause more damage to the local power infrastructure, local officials say.

Thunderstorms, along with strong winds, are also possible late tonight.

Keysor said the primary concern associated with the storm is the threat of strong winds.

He said since the ice build-up on trees and power lines has not yet melted off, the wind could put even more pressure on trees and power lines already weighed down with ice.

Thirty-mile-per-hour gusts could slow or delay the power restoration process, Keysor said.

Keysor does not expect the snow or freezing rain to cause many issues, however.

The freezing rain is expected to last for a short duration of a couple of hours, and ice will likely not accumulate to the same extent as Saturday’s storm.

Temperatures are expected to rise this afternoon, and Keysor predicts that most of the ice will be either blown off by the wind or melted away by Thursday.

Temperatures are expected to reach 50 degrees on Thursday afternoon and remain in the forties through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

The sun is expected to peek through the clouds on Thursday, and Friday is expected to be mostly sunny, with some sunshine through the weekend.

Keysor said that during Saturday’s storm, some areas in northern Michigan experienced up to an inch of ice accumulation. Most areas ranged from half an inch to an inch thick. That amount of ice and weight on power lines and trees set up the worst-case scenario for people in the area.

“That is in the catastrophic range of what icing can do to trees and power lines,” Keysor said. “It’s an amazing amount of weight that occurs with that ice. It’s quite heavy. The branches and trees are unable to handle it.”

The ice storm warning went up in Alpena early Saturday morning and was not taken down until Monday morning, but periods of freezing rain and rain persisted.

Keyser said there is a lot of work to do before things get back to normal.

“The impacts continue even though the rain has stopped,” Keysor said. “It will take probably weeks until things are back to more normal.”

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.