Snow Record Likely to Fall, Plow Crews Adjust
Prince was right, “Sometimes It Snows in April.” Boy did it ever. By the time the snowfall winds down, April 3, 2018 is expected to end up in the record books for highest snowfall total.
More than 8 inches of snow has fallen since Monday afternoon in the northwest suburbs, including 5.2″ on Tuesday (as of 4 p.m.). Those totals were measured in New Hope by Steve Reckers, who reports his data to the National Weather Service.
In the city of Crystal, crews were called in earlier than normal to keep up with the conditions.
“We had one truck start at 1 o’clock in the morning, because once everything melted yesterday, and it refroze overnight,” explained Bill Bowman, Crystal’s streets supervisor.
Crystal has six plows to clear and salt 90 miles of city streets. Bowman says snow in spring is a guessing game when trying to determine what resources are needed.
“They can predict 4 to 6 inches, but how much is actually going to stick to the roads?” explained Bowman.
And because the Crystal staff is relatively small, the city doesn’t want to exhaust crews by sending them out earlier than it has to.
“We try not to have them out any longer than 11 hours, at the most,” said Bowman.
The warmer pavement melts the snow faster, but temperatures are getting much colder this week, including a mere 10 degrees Tuesday night into Wednesday. Crystal public works crews say they will be out, bright and early Wednesday to clear and treat the roads.
