While buying last-minute Valentine’s Day gifts Monday, shoppers had to add a few items to their lists — such as milk, bread and snow shovels.

“We have certain phases of snow emergency plans,” said Rick Rodgers, senior vice president of operations for Shoppers Food and Pharmacy. “This one we put a ‘severe phase’ in effect so the store would get the right amount of preorder product to get shipped to a store in advance.”

The Baltimore area could get up to an inch of ice today, followed by freezing rain tonight, according to the National Weather Service forecast.

The precipitation could change to freezing rain and last through tonight, with the possibility of snowfall or other precipitation lasting through Wednesday afternoon.

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To handle the storm, Baltimore City has crews on 24-hour standby and more than 25,000 tons of salt.

But the threat of ice has made the upcoming storm a little trickier, said David Brown, spokesman for the Baltimore City Department of Transportation.

“If you don’t have to be on the street, then don’t, and be aware for other travelers,” he said.

“We really need to see what the conditions are in order to see what we need to do to deal with it, but we have everything we need at our disposal,” said Bill Korpman, deputy director of public works for Baltimore County.

“We will be out as long as we need to in order to get things cleaned up,” he said.

bmann@baltimoreexaminer.com