A three-inch snow storm that blasted Charleston Tuesday morning could have been much worse, officials say.

“We got really, really lucky because conditions were right for an ice storm,” Dean Barber, Charleston director of public works and interim city manager, said Tuesday. “We got lucky it changed to sleet and snow right away.”

The snowy weather was caused by a low pressure system which occurred when two different air masses, one from the north and another from the south, clashed together, local weather observer Dalias Price said Tuesday.

“We were extremely fortunate that we didn’t have an ice storm,” Price said. Charleston did receive ice pellets, but that is better than a sheet of ice, he added.

The city’s snow removal team started clearing roads at 4 a.m. Tuesday and continued to work the remainder of the day.

The roads have been fine, Barber said. “By this time tomorrow there should be no snow at all,” he added.

If fact, the area may see no additional snow for the rest of the season.

“This will likely be the last of the snow,” Price said, explaining the area could get a ‘flake or two,’ but no accumulation. Tuesday’s snowfall was a bit unusual in itself.

“It’s unusual in a way, happening at the end of March. Generally all the cold weather has been in December,” he said. “It would have been better to happen early on in the month. Normally would get more snow in January and February.”

Whenever snow does hit the area, Charleston has a plan that divides the city into six sections, coordinating the removal effort. Charleston has six snowplows, two of which have salt spreaders; two salt spreaders; a small truck used to remove snow from parking lots and an in-loader and back-hoe for removing large amounts of snow.

Normally over the course of the winter, this area receives an average of 17 inches of snow. So far, Charleston has received only 15 inches of snow, mostly since January, Price’s records indicate. Tuesday’s snow brought with it unusually low temperatures.

“Usually on this date the high will be 56 and the low 38, but it didn’t even get to 38,” Price said.

But today’s temperatures didn’t come close to hitting the record low of 5 set in 1955. However, Tuesday’s snowfall was a rude remainder that spring has not yet arrived.

With the spring equinox occurring March 21, many people believe spring is truly here, but that isn’t the case, Price said. Spring actually begins, he said, in the second week of April, and people will begin to see more sunlight.

Price said it will warm up in the later part of the week.