Just before Christmas, Kentucky took a winter storm that saw rain change to snow, temperatures crash about 50 degrees in a span of a few hours, and flash-frozen roads with a couple of inches of snow on them. The temperature barely budged above 0 F on the 23rd and not much warmer on Christmas Eve.
There were huge traffic messes, including one on I-71 between US 127 and I-75.
A lot of Kentucky's messaging during that time was that melting agents don't work when it gets that cold. Kentucky typically uses standard salt and will wet it down in the spreader trucks with liquid calcium chloride, but that proved ineffective for a lot of the snow removal.
What do other states use to melt snow and ice, especially those in New England and the upper midwest where they're used to temps hovering around 0? This has to be something that North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine deal with several times a year. How do they clear their roads?
Quote from: hbelkins on December 29, 2022, 02:30:31 PM
Just before Christmas, Kentucky took a winter storm that saw rain change to snow, temperatures crash about 50 degrees in a span of a few hours, and flash-frozen roads with a couple of inches of snow on them. The temperature barely budged above 0 F on the 23rd and not much warmer on Christmas Eve.
There were huge traffic messes, including one on I-71 between US 127 and I-75.
A lot of Kentucky's messaging during that time was that melting agents don't work when it gets that cold. Kentucky typically uses standard salt and will wet it down in the spreader trucks with liquid calcium chloride, but that proved ineffective for a lot of the snow removal.
What do other states use to melt snow and ice, especially those in New England and the upper midwest where they're used to temps hovering around 0? This has to be something that North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine deal with several times a year. How do they clear their roads?
The roads up here were pretty bad until yesterday when it warmed up into the 20s. Then they scraped them with plows and used salts. Now that its above freezing, the roads are mostly just wet, but snow still exists where there isn't a lot of traffic.
In northern Michigan, especially the UP, often they plow the snow as best they can and spread sand on whatever is remaining.
In West Virginia, the DOH used sand and once-upon-a-time used cinders. I believe that cinders are no longer considered to be healthy because of the potential for high concentrations of sulfur and heavy metal contaminants. (Of course, in West Virginia we also spelt that chemical element as "Sulphur").
But if you missed my point in a previous post, those other states (including West Virginia) do not try to completely remove the snow from the roadway surface. Instead (speaking from a West Virginia point of view), we were taught that it is sometimes necessary to drive in snow and ice and that it is OK to do the slip-slide occasionally, even if it meant that you plowed into somebody else (or a tree). The DOH experimented with heated guideway technology back in the 1970s, but the main purpose was to prevent salt damage to bridges (ergo potholes and corrosion of important structural elements), rather than complete snow and ice removal.
Caltrans doesn't do much beyond basic plowing and use of occasional brine.
One thing I hated about living in St Louis City is the city only plows/salts the main streets and lets nature do the rest. This normally isn't too bad but in late 1991 we had a series of ice storms starting at Thanksgiving that hit every 4-5 days with subfreezing temperatures between the storms so the ice never melted. By the solstice there was 2-3 inches of ice on the ground and driving on any side street with even a minor slope was seriously dangerous. I woke up one day to discover someone had skated across my lawn. The ice melted between the solstice and Xmas Day so there was no White Christmas in St Louis that year despite the ice month from hell. I was shocked when I moved to South County and discovered the county plows all the streets including my insignificant block-long side street.
Albany NY area had a similar situation last year. Pre-salted roads could be plowed, but a lot of people had driveways covered with ice for a week or so.
Starting the cycle with rain washing off pre-sprayed salt may make things interesting. I don't think there is an effective way to melt ice once it is fused to the road and the temperature is low. Sand may be an option, but it is not an SOP in most places...
Unfortunately as mentioned, snow/ice melt solutions see drastic reductions in effectiveness as temperatures decline. A significant snow followed by a lengthy cold snap with temperatures not getting much above 0 for several following days (assuming no additional snow) probably results in 2-3 days of not being able to drive the speed limit safely around here. That doesn't stop some people from trying, but F around and...well, you know.
I guess, we just kind of deal with it.
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I'm starting to think Québec City just doesn't plow at all.
Quote from: webny99 on December 29, 2022, 06:06:46 PM
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I don't agree with that at all. A hard snowpack is awful to drive on.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 06:55:55 PM
Quote from: webny99 on December 29, 2022, 06:06:46 PM
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I don't agree with that at all. A hard snowpack is awful to drive on.
Hard snowpack that has sand on it is fine on unpaved roads. I'm often able to go as fast on such as I usually do during the summer. But paved roads are an entirely different story. Differences in albedo and radiation absorbtion mean that snowpack on pavement usually turns to ice...much more so than on unpaved roads.
Quote from: froggie on December 29, 2022, 08:01:20 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 06:55:55 PM
Quote from: webny99 on December 29, 2022, 06:06:46 PM
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I don't agree with that at all. A hard snowpack is awful to drive on.
Hard snowpack that has sand on it is fine on unpaved roads. I'm often able to go as fast on such as I usually do during the summer. But paved roads are an entirely different story. Differences in albedo and radiation absorbtion mean that snowpack on pavement usually turns to ice...much more so than on unpaved roads.
Do you mean that packed ice is transparent enough to IR for underlying surface to get enough sun, or some other mechanism?
Thinking about it, alternative could be how single exposed dark spot on smooth pavement tends to cause change on thin ice edges, as opposed to a single protruding stone surounded by thicker ice...
Quote from: froggie on December 29, 2022, 08:01:20 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 06:55:55 PM
Quote from: webny99 on December 29, 2022, 06:06:46 PM
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I don't agree with that at all. A hard snowpack is awful to drive on.
Hard snowpack that has sand on it is fine on unpaved roads. I'm often able to go as fast on such as I usually do during the summer. But paved roads are an entirely different story. Differences in albedo and radiation absorbtion mean that snowpack on pavement usually turns to ice...much more so than on unpaved roads.
Yes, that is my experience. Plus they tend to get "potholes" that make them bumpy and slippery.
Quote from: Dirt Roads on December 29, 2022, 03:09:22 PM
In West Virginia, the DOH used sand and once-upon-a-time used cinders. I believe that cinders are no longer considered to be healthy because of the potential for high concentrations of sulfur and heavy metal contaminants. (Of course, in West Virginia we also spelt that chemical element as "Sulphur").
But if you missed my point in a previous post, those other states (including West Virginia) do not try to completely remove the snow from the roadway surface. Instead (speaking from a West Virginia point of view), we were taught that it is sometimes necessary to drive in snow and ice and that it is OK to do the slip-slide occasionally, even if it meant that you plowed into somebody else (or a tree). The DOH experimented with heated guideway technology back in the 1970s, but the main purpose was to prevent salt damage to bridges (ergo potholes and corrosion of important structural elements), rather than complete snow and ice removal.
I distinctly remember WV using cinders with the salt in a heavy snowstorm back in 2004.
I've told the story before. I had driven to Washington DC via I-68 and intended to return via I-81/I-64. I hate sharing freeways with speeding traffic (especially big trucks) when it's snowing, because those trucks don't slow down for conditions. I'd rather drive a mountainous two-lane road at slow speed than have trucks whizzing by me in the snow like the road was dry. It started snowing on me not long after Haymarket, and it was coming down at a decent clip and starting to stick to the pavement by the time I got to the end of I-66. So I bailed off the interstate at Strasburg and took VA/WV 55 (which included the new section of Corridor H between Baker and Moorefield), US 220, WV 42, WV 93, US 219, and US 33 to I-79. It was snowing heavily from Wardensville to Parsons, but I didn't have any trouble. The snow was down to nearly nothing by the time I got to Montrose and was pretty much gone by Buckhannon.
WV was plowing and treating along the route, but I had no issues navigating the mountain climb on the WV 42/93 concurrency, or US 219 between Thomas and Parsons. Having a 4WD truck with new tires made a huge difference. I figured traffic would be light (it was) and I trusted my own driving ability more than the truckers doing 70 on a snow-covered I-81.
There was a heavy application of cinders along with the salt.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 29, 2022, 02:30:31 PMWhat do other states use to melt snow and ice, especially those in New England and the upper midwest where they're used to temps hovering around 0? This has to be something that North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine deal with several times a year. How do they clear their roads?
They use basically the same equipment, materials, and techniques as states further south. Winter maintenance budgets are larger and there are some differences in underlying infrastructure provision (e.g., more extensive RWIS sensor networks, blade up/blade down markers on guardrails and other roadside obstacles), but generally speaking, pretty much every state DOT tries to operate a bare pavement policy for the upper echelons of its road hierarchy. Whether it can do so hinges on variables specific to each storm.
It is often said that Southern states are more likely to have problems with winter precipitation falling as ice, but there are plenty of examples of systematic breakdowns in the North due to heavy accumulations. Besides Buffalo in the last week, Pennsylvania had a storm in February 2007 that coated Interstates with six inches of ice, and just last January about 50 miles of I-95 in Virginia had to close because of a popup blizzard.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on December 29, 2022, 05:43:09 PM
A significant snow followed by a lengthy cold snap with temperatures not getting much above 0 for several following days (assuming no additional snow) probably results in 2-3 days of not being able to drive the speed limit safely around here. Not that that doesn't stop some people from trying, but F around and...well, you know.
Well, I'm glad it stops people from trying, at least! :-D
Quote from: J N Winkler on December 30, 2022, 02:11:14 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 29, 2022, 02:30:31 PMWhat do other states use to melt snow and ice, especially those in New England and the upper midwest where they're used to temps hovering around 0? This has to be something that North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine deal with several times a year. How do they clear their roads?
They use basically the same equipment, materials, and techniques as states further south. Winter maintenance budgets are larger and there are some differences in underlying infrastructure provision (e.g., more extensive RWIS sensor networks, blade up/blade down markers on guardrails and other roadside obstacles), but generally speaking, pretty much every state DOT tries to operate a bare pavement policy for the upper echelons of its road hierarchy. Whether it can do so hinges on variables specific to each storm.
It is often said that Southern states are more likely to have problems with winter precipitation falling as ice, but there are plenty of examples of systematic breakdowns in the North due to heavy accumulations. Besides Buffalo in the last week, Pennsylvania had a storm in February 2007 that coated Interstates with six inches of ice, and just last January about 50 miles of I-95 in Virginia had to close because of a popup blizzard.
Sometime in the late 2000s, the Dallas area got hit with a snow and ice storm right around the time they were hosting the Super Bowl. My wife was in the area for a related event and she said the roads were atrocious. Dallas/Ft. Worth were completely unprepared for the weather. They had to import snow removal equipment from the northern panhandle to tackle the problem.
I don't know how a bigger budget helps get to bare pavement if states in northern climes that frequently see single-digit or below-zero temps are using the same melting agents that don't work in Kentucky at that temperature.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 30, 2022, 09:52:36 PMI don't know how a bigger budget helps get to bare pavement if states in northern climes that frequently see single-digit or below-zero temps are using the same melting agents that don't work in Kentucky at that temperature.
There is no magic state DOTs have further north that KyTC doesn't have access to. And while they are better resourced for winter maintenance, it is very easy to get behind the eight ball through some combination of bad luck, bad timing, and bad decisions. The 50-mile closure of I-95 in Virginia happened partly because traffic was heavy as commuters tried unsuccessfully to get out ahead of a blizzard that had already arrived, so snow packed and turned into ice, and the time to clear a single lane-mile skyrocketed to the point the plowing crews on duty had no hope of catching up before hundreds of vehicles were stranded.
As for the specific problem of getting to bare pavement in subzero temperatures, you simply don't expect melting agents to work. Mechanical removal through repeated plowing becomes your only option. This is a lot easier when the snow falls as powder and stays in that state, traffic is light, and bright daylight comes back soon enough to help melt areas where plowing has reduced the albedo.
Just clearing the pavement makes for a super quick rebound. I always shovel out the short driveway to my garage and my sidewalks and it's clear as a bell as soon as the sun comes back out.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 30, 2022, 09:52:36 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on December 30, 2022, 02:11:14 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on December 29, 2022, 02:30:31 PMWhat do other states use to melt snow and ice, especially those in New England and the upper midwest where they're used to temps hovering around 0? This has to be something that North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine deal with several times a year. How do they clear their roads?
They use basically the same equipment, materials, and techniques as states further south. Winter maintenance budgets are larger and there are some differences in underlying infrastructure provision (e.g., more extensive RWIS sensor networks, blade up/blade down markers on guardrails and other roadside obstacles), but generally speaking, pretty much every state DOT tries to operate a bare pavement policy for the upper echelons of its road hierarchy. Whether it can do so hinges on variables specific to each storm.
It is often said that Southern states are more likely to have problems with winter precipitation falling as ice, but there are plenty of examples of systematic breakdowns in the North due to heavy accumulations. Besides Buffalo in the last week, Pennsylvania had a storm in February 2007 that coated Interstates with six inches of ice, and just last January about 50 miles of I-95 in Virginia had to close because of a popup blizzard.
Sometime in the late 2000s, the Dallas area got hit with a snow and ice storm right around the time they were hosting the Super Bowl. My wife was in the area for a related event and she said the roads were atrocious. Dallas/Ft. Worth were completely unprepared for the weather. They had to import snow removal equipment from the northern panhandle to tackle the problem.
I don't know how a bigger budget helps get to bare pavement if states in northern climes that frequently see single-digit or below-zero temps are using the same melting agents that don't work in Kentucky at that temperature.
Bigger budgets helps with the frequency of the storms. Someone mentioned their winter in St. Louis, but I lived in Terre Haute, IN one winter where the side streets were never cleared or treated. And it was terrible even though it was a type of winter that I was used to being from Wisconsin. The city had enough plows for the major streets, and the state took care of the highways, but the rural portions of the county were basically on their own.
But I also think you are exaggerating how cold it actually gets. Rarely will it get so cold that melting agents are ineffective for more than a few days. There are exceptions of course - January 2014 was so snowy and cold that we had packed snow on the streets for weeks. We just had to deal with it.
Quote from: Road Hog on December 31, 2022, 03:55:36 AMJust clearing the pavement makes for a super quick rebound. I always shovel out the short driveway to my garage and my sidewalks and it's clear as a bell as soon as the sun comes back out.
And this additional melting and drying due to daylight occurs even when temperatures are well below freezing. In the last snowstorm we had days in the single digits with winds out of the north at 30 MPH, and trace snow still disappeared completely from freshly shoveled areas of our driveway that were in sun.
It's all about albedo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo) reduction, people.
For the most part, the basic process is fairly simple. The main melting agent is sodium chloride (rock salt). At lower temperatures, liquid calcium chloride solution is added to the salt to increase its effectiveness.
The treatment, and frequency of treatment, of the roads is what matters more. Getting brine out there before the storm (if it's not going to rain first) helps delay the inevitable sticking to the roads. But once snow/ice starts sticking, frequent spreading of salt and heavier spreads are really all that can be done. If a truck does an occasional pass, or spreads a minimum quantity of salt, the roads are going to freeze.
The colder the temps, the harder it is to break up that accumulated snow and ice.
It's a bit counter-intuitive, but traffic also assists with the clearing. They tell you to stay off the roads when conditions are bad, but traffic helps improve the conditions of the road. Once there's snow and ice on the road, we can spread that salt, but it's mostly going to lay on top of the snow and ice. When there's traffic, those tires help pound the salt into the snow and ice, and that greatly assists with the clearing of the snow/ice. Those vehicles right behind a salt spreader are going to get the worst of it - if they're too close, they're going to get beaned with salt. And the roads are still going to be covered with ice and snow. Give it about 15 minutes, and traffic in that same area will have a much clearer ride because the salt has been mixed with the ice and snow due to traffic.
Sun strength helps as well. Road clearing in December and January is tougher than February and March.
I'm not doing snow removal this year, choosing to sleep in overnight vs having to be on the roads overnight. But, I did it for 20 years. I've seen quite a bit. I've seen what works. What doesn't work. Good days. Bad days. Complaints by the crew leader, only to be chewed out an hour later because conditions changed dramatically.
I can have the most perfect road condition, but if a snow squall comes thru and I'm at the opposite end of my route, there's nothing I can do until I make it up there.
Public GPS locations of trucks is often a mistake in my opinion. We're assigned specific routes. If someone complains there's a truck on Road A near an issue on Road B, they won't readily take the truck off Road A because that road can quickly become an issue. The crew on Road B will get there; it just won't be instantaneously.
On a road with houses and businesses, I can guarantee you two things: 1) Go too slow, and the traffic behind you gets pissed you're not going fast enough. 2) Go too fast, and the residents along that road have the DOT numbers programmed in their phones to call to say their house and cars and kids and mailboxes are getting hit with flying slush.
Truck conditions are another issue. Plowing snow and ice is probably the most stress a truck can be put under. Snow is heavy. Very heavy. Salt is corrosive. Very corrosive. Vehicles are not made for either. They will break down. They will get clogged. Last year when Texas experienced a location of a massive crash on an icy road, I could see something many won't consider: The salt spreader had temporarily become jammed in that location, and salt didn't spread out. The only way to fix that is by stopping, eliminating the problem, but then having to loop around, sometimes several miles, to get back to the area that was missed. During that time, problems can occur. Backing up usually isn't an option, especially if there's traffic on the road.
Clearing snow and ice takes time. There's no other way around it.
Not sure about all of North Carolina, but around here NCDOT puts down brine a few days before a predicted snow storm. The application tends to be in narrow stripes (usually seven) of brine per lane, such that when it dries, you have seven continuous salt stripes about 2 inches wide. Sometimes you will see where the sprayer had to change lanes and they will eventually come back and complete the missing sections. If the weather holds out longer (rarely), NCDOT might have extra time to get out on a few of the local roads with a brine application just as the storm is near.
Invariably, the early part of the storm is more rain than snow. If the rain becomes heavy, we lose most of the snow-melting effect of the brine stripes before the snow sticks. NCDOT tends to be ready to spread salt on the Interstates and some major thoroughfares, but the rest of the local roads usually have to wait out until warm weather. After a heavy snow, NCDOT does come out several times to scrape, and even the least used backroads get scraped. After the meltoff, NCDOT is really good at finding the "shady spots" and putting down sand or sometimes road salt on icy curves that are going to catch the locals off-guard (ergo, the ones that never drive in snow). Just west of here, the folks are much more likely to get out and drive in snow/ice, so you don't see nearly as much of the "shady spot" applications on the local roads (even though we are in the same District 7).
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 08:47:23 PM
Quote from: froggie on December 29, 2022, 08:01:20 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 06:55:55 PM
Quote from: webny99 on December 29, 2022, 06:06:46 PM
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I don't agree with that at all. A hard snowpack is awful to drive on.
Hard snowpack that has sand on it is fine on unpaved roads. I'm often able to go as fast on such as I usually do during the summer. But paved roads are an entirely different story. Differences in albedo and radiation absorbtion mean that snowpack on pavement usually turns to ice...much more so than on unpaved roads.
Yes, that is my experience. Plus they tend to get "potholes" that make them bumpy and slippery.
Yes, but I still think I'd rather hard snowpack if it's too cold for salt to be effective. Attempting to clear the roads down to blacktop and leaving a slippery slushy mix is even worse.
Quote from: webny99 on December 31, 2022, 02:35:10 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 08:47:23 PM
Quote from: froggie on December 29, 2022, 08:01:20 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 06:55:55 PM
Quote from: webny99 on December 29, 2022, 06:06:46 PM
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I don't agree with that at all. A hard snowpack is awful to drive on.
Hard snowpack that has sand on it is fine on unpaved roads. I'm often able to go as fast on such as I usually do during the summer. But paved roads are an entirely different story. Differences in albedo and radiation absorbtion mean that snowpack on pavement usually turns to ice...much more so than on unpaved roads.
Yes, that is my experience. Plus they tend to get "potholes" that make them bumpy and slippery.
Yes, but I still think I'd rather hard snowpack if it's too cold for salt to be effective. Attempting to clear the roads down to blacktop and leaving a slippery slushy mix is even worse.
Slush is fine when there's salt mixed it. It probably won't refreeze.
Snowpack is fine unless it freezes into ice.
Quote from: webny99 on December 31, 2022, 02:35:10 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 08:47:23 PM
Quote from: froggie on December 29, 2022, 08:01:20 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on December 29, 2022, 06:55:55 PM
Quote from: webny99 on December 29, 2022, 06:06:46 PM
Yes, my experience with Minnesota, North Dakota, and one winter trip to Montana has been that they plow snow a lot less than we do here in the Great Lakes snow belt. That's because temperatures are that much colder on average, so the heavy salting we do here doesn't work as well there. Almost everyone has 4WD and just seem to accept that the roads won't be clear right after a big snowfall - and in fact, the roads are actually safer to drive with a layer of hard snowpack than trying to clear them to blacktop and being left with a slick, slushy mix.
I don't agree with that at all. A hard snowpack is awful to drive on.
Hard snowpack that has sand on it is fine on unpaved roads. I'm often able to go as fast on such as I usually do during the summer. But paved roads are an entirely different story. Differences in albedo and radiation absorbtion mean that snowpack on pavement usually turns to ice...much more so than on unpaved roads.
Yes, that is my experience. Plus they tend to get "potholes" that make them bumpy and slippery.
Yes, but I still think I'd rather hard snowpack if it's too cold for salt to be effective. Attempting to clear the roads down to blacktop and leaving a slippery slushy mix is even worse.
I spent my college years in the snowbelt in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They absolutely revert to hard snowpack with sand in colder conditions, and that's generally fine. One isn't going to drive hard and aggressive in those conditions, and the snowpack tends to lock in the sand cover well. The big point of the plows is to punch through the snowdrifts that would otherwise make the roads impassible.
Will potholes in the snowpack form? Yes, but at that point it either snows again and smooths everything out, or it warms up enough the plows can get down to bare pavement.
I was in Fairbanks, Alaska during the winter once (it is as advertised). They use road graders and gravel.
In Northern California, I ran across a quite hillbilly setup for crushing volcanic boulders to use on snow. Truly, ingenuity knows no bounds.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230123/f35b0ff54003002bc2c3823613a1e097.jpg)
I decided today I'm going to buy what is essentially a flamethrower so that I don't have to shovel anymore. Why not just melt the stuff instead of moving it back and forth?
Don't scare the neighbors with it!
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 23, 2023, 04:31:59 PM
I decided today I'm going to buy what is essentially a flamethrower so that I don't have to shovel anymore. Why not just melt the stuff instead of moving it back and forth?
Did you buy skates as well?
Quote from: kalvado on January 23, 2023, 06:53:05 PM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 23, 2023, 04:31:59 PM
I decided today I'm going to buy what is essentially a flamethrower so that I don't have to shovel anymore. Why not just melt the stuff instead of moving it back and forth?
Did you buy skates as well?
whYqzqwt awww right 2qqq
Quote from: kalvado on January 23, 2023, 06:53:05 PM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 23, 2023, 04:31:59 PM
I decided today I'm going to buy what is essentially a flamethrower so that I don't have to shovel anymore. Why not just melt the stuff instead of moving it back and forth?
Did you buy skates as well?
I was formerly a hockey player. No need. :)
I don't have any links handy but I did see some articles in recent weeks that were discussing a noticeable increase of measured salinity in bodies of water in the Great Lakes region. Might were relatively soon be seeing a serious legislative and even legal attempt to limit on the use of salt in snow and ice control?
mike
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2023, 11:14:29 AM
I don't have any links handy but I did see some articles in recent weeks that were discussing a noticeable increase of measured salinity in bodies of water in the Great Lakes region. Might were relatively soon be seeing a serious legislative and even legal attempt to limit on the use of salt in snow and ice control?
mike
Great lakes are not alone, nor road salt is the only source. Limiting the amount of road salt probably has to happen.
There were some articles about how salt was used in NY for Lake Placid Olympics, and that was supposed to be a one-off event - but became the new normal.
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 23, 2023, 04:31:59 PM
I decided today I'm going to buy what is essentially a flamethrower so that I don't have to shovel anymore. Why not just melt the stuff instead of moving it back and forth?
Someone watch an episode of Top Gear recently? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBG4ryNbmdg
In Des Moines, the city will brine the busier streets and bridges at least 12 hours out when a storm is expected. Here, super cold and snow don't really happen at the same time (that's not to say it never happens) so the brining, plowing, salting, plowing cycle works pretty well.
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 23, 2023, 04:31:59 PM
I decided today I'm going to buy what is essentially a flamethrower so that I don't have to shovel anymore. Why not just melt the stuff instead of moving it back and forth?
Pro tip: road flares don't work lol
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230125/cf00cf72cd970ea1871d5f1a186bbd3e.jpg)
Quote from: 6a on January 25, 2023, 04:56:15 PM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 23, 2023, 04:31:59 PM
I decided today I'm going to buy what is essentially a flamethrower so that I don't have to shovel anymore. Why not just melt the stuff instead of moving it back and forth?
Pro tip: road flares don't work lol
Quick estimate - ice melting requires 334 J/gram, propane burn generates 50 kJ/gram. So 1 weight of propane can melt 150 weights of snow ideally, I would plan for 50 realistically
My driveway is 2 car wide, and not too long; 20x60' or so. We had something like 0.5" precipitations (6" of snow) on Monday, for about 2200 lb of snow on a driveway.
Sounds like 2 standard 20 lb propane tanks would do the job for me. I wonder if plowing is just faster, though...
Yeah. I realized that I can't do the whole driveway with it, but I can get the tough stuff. I can probably use our leaf blower to get the easy stuff away since our snow is so dry.
I have considered using a heat gun to clear black ice from an area immediately in front of our porch that gets absolutely no sun in the winter. Other than that, I just try to shovel the snow in three-inch lifts. Any additional accumulation costs more in effort per inch to shovel off.
As an Oklahoman, my snow and ice protocol is to purchase a few days' worth of groceries before the storm, then simply not leave the house until the snow melts. We got 3" or so yesterday and it's already more or less melted.
How snow removal on CA 89 at Emerald Bay is presently going:
https://www.facebook.com/100064705745444/posts/pfbid0TP1mmH9SAhn74rm92x9dFHuZcNsFTgDb5kVzKv2W6ZsnDLWJREdAQpB74zsrPY16l/?mibextid=cr9u03
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 25, 2023, 08:17:20 PM
As an Oklahoman, my snow and ice protocol is to purchase a few days' worth of groceries before the storm, then simply not leave the house until the snow melts. We got 3" or so yesterday and it's already more or less melted.
Normally the case here (except for our yearly Spring snow dump) too, but not this year. I posted in the weather thread that this is the first time since 2010 that we haven't had a 60° day in January.
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 25, 2023, 08:45:12 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 25, 2023, 08:17:20 PM
As an Oklahoman, my snow and ice protocol is to purchase a few days' worth of groceries before the storm, then simply not leave the house until the snow melts. We got 3" or so yesterday and it's already more or less melted.
Normally the case here (except for our yearly Spring snow dump) too, but not this year. I posted in the weather thread that this is the first time since 2010 that we haven't had a 60° day in January.
See, that actually comes as a big surprise to me, being from Salt Lake which I typically think of as being very similar if not a bit warmer than Denver (as it is 1000 feet lower). SLC almost never gets the big cold snaps that Denver does thanks to its location on the other side of the Rockies, and when it does it doesn't get nearly as cold. The same system that brought Denver down to -24 in December only took Salt Lake down to 17 (though it did drop to 12 a few days before that).
At any rate, a typical January in Salt Lake will see just a small handful of days in the 50s. The last time it hit 60 in January was 2003, and there have been six years since then where it didn't even break 50. I suppose that's a consequence of stronger inversions with mountains on both sides.
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 25, 2023, 07:36:01 PM
Yeah. I realized that I can't do the whole driveway with it, but I can get the tough stuff. I can probably use our leaf blower to get the easy stuff away since our snow is so dry.
I've seen people use lawn mowers to clear light coatings of dry powder snow from sidewalks. OTOH, railroads have been known to use jet engines that are mounted on 'hi-rail' equipped maintenance trucks to clear snow from switches.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on January 26, 2023, 01:13:33 AM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on January 25, 2023, 07:36:01 PM
Yeah. I realized that I can't do the whole driveway with it, but I can get the tough stuff. I can probably use our leaf blower to get the easy stuff away since our snow is so dry.
I've seen people use lawn mowers to clear light coatings of dry powder snow from sidewalks. OTOH, railroads have been known to use jet engines that are mounted on 'hi-rail' equipped maintenance trucks to clear snow from switches.
Mike
Jet engine is a snow blower on steroids....
Quote from: mgk920 on January 26, 2023, 01:13:33 AM
OTOH, railroads have been known to use jet engines that are mounted on 'hi-rail' equipped maintenance trucks to clear snow from switches.
Wow, that brings back memories. I was part of a railroad study to determine the effectiveness of wayside-mounted jet engines [to avoid snow and ice buildup] on switches. We had some heavy snows during my time, and the jet blower worked quite well (even through a light ice storm event). Most of my locations in Southwest Pennsylvania were snow melters (traditional blowers operated with fuel oil heaters); and before I moved there I worked on the installation of a clip-mounted ceramic heater-element installation at one location on that same territory. Another location was damaged in a minor derailment and we replaced it with a propane-fired snow melter. All those other systems had a few problems here-and-there.
Sublimation is my friend for snow clearing. I almost never use any salt because usually if one scrapes off the snow from pavement before it gets compacted by foot or vehicle traffic, the residual will sublimate over the next few hours due to the dry air that tends to follow snow events. Even if there's a bit of ice, that too, will sublimate enough to where it no longer is slippery.
Maybe 1 out of every 10 snowfalls justify salting for what I have to clear. And that's been consistent for me all over this state for a quarter century.
The thing about sublimation is it more or less requires sun. When I was growing up in Utah, we lived in a house with a north-facing driveway, so it was in the shade all winter long. Salt was a necessity especially when we had heavier, wetter snow, which would usually form icy layers on the bottom especially if the storm started with a period of rain. The advantage at least for Salt Lake is it rarely ever drops below 10F or so, so it's almost always warm enough for salt to be effective. The same cannot be said for the upper Midwest.
My parents now live in a house with a south-facing driveway, which was actually a huge factor in that moving decision.
Maybe someone from the PacNW can help me understand something about snow removal.
I used to live near Portland part time back in the '90s. One year, toward the end of the decade, both Oregon and Washington started mitigating the occasional snow that would fall on the roads between I-5 and the coast not with salt but with fine gravel. All of a sudden, thousands of people found themselves with cracked windshields, from the larger particles getting kicked up by other vehicles. I had three cracks in mine. A few people reported that they thought they had been shot at.
But the worst part was that it turns out that this gravel makes an excellent grinding compound. By the spring, the freeways between Portland and Seattle (and probably others elsewhere) had developed inch-deep ruts in every lane where the vehicles' wheels go. When it rained (which is almost always during the wet half of the year), these formed puddles that caused hydroplaning, so people had to drive off-center in the lanes in order to maintain control.
By the time I left in 2000, it seemed like they had stopped doing this, and had patched or repaved some of the roads. I never went back until recently, and I noticed that they seem to have done it again, although less severely. I found parts of various highways that had slight ruts, and I saw many roads that had telltale stripes of darker asphalt down them indicating ruts that had been patched. Is this now the policy in the northwest? Use some sand or gravel that isn't so coarse that it causes cracked windshields, but that forms slight ruts, and then patch them periodically?
We develop wheel-path ruts fairly readily in the upper Midwest; particularly in areas where there are a lot of heavy logging trucks on the roads. Since we definitely salt our roads, I'm thinking the ruts you see in the Northwest are not from using sand during occasional low elevation snow/ice. But rather they are the result of wear from heavy trucks.
^^^ Except that the inch-deep ruts first appeared in the same year that everyone's windshields were cracked by the gravel they started using.