Wow, this is an odd new strategy. 6 inches of snow last night, no snow emergency. 6 – 8 inches of snow tonight and no snow emergency. I think we need to define what a snow emergency now means so people can know what to expect. Have they just given up on plowing downtown when it snows? Do they not want our cars off the streets? I’m actually kind of confused by this change.
SNOW PLOWING UPDATES
by Alan Schumacher, Streets Superintendent
posted February 1, 2011 6:46 AMClose to 6″ of snow fell on Monday and during the overnight hours. Crews focused on plowing the major arterials during the overnight hours and the plowing of all residential streets began at 4:00 am this morning. The snow is a light, dry snow so if you have to get out and about before your street is plowed, you should be able to without too much difficulty. We hope to complete the plowing by shortly after noon and we will be salting our main arterials and salt routes again today. The main arterials do have snow on them even though they have been plowed. Salt is not working very well at the temperatures we currently are seeing.
I do expect quite a bit of snow to be at the bottom of residential driveways after both this storm and round two. With close to 6″ of snow and the amount of snow that we have seen so far this year, the windrows of snow on the terraces are getting quite high. This will cause the newly plowed snow to stay on the plow instead of falling off on the terrace and will end up falling off the plow where there is the least resistance, which will be the driveways.
There is a blizzard warning for Madison for tonight into Wednesday as the second half of the storm arrives. Another 6″ – 8″ of snow is expected with wind gusts of over 35 mph. The snow is expected to start again early this afternoon and continue throughout the night before ending sometime before noon on Wednesday.
We will continue to salt and plow our salt routes while the snow is in progress later today.
Once the plowing of the residential streets is completed today, we will begin preparations for plowing all residential streets for the second time sometime on Wednesday morning. There will not be a Snow Emergency declared today but there will more than likely be one declared for Wednesday night and Thursday night to assist us with the cleanup after the back to back storms.
I do expect that round two of the storm will be worse than round one. The combination of snow and blizzard like conditions wil make travel tonight and tomorrow difficult.
