The Christmas Snow left us with a haunting mess…9 inches of snow followed by 37 degrees and rain on Christmas Day made for great, fast sledding but not for clean parking lots.
Beautiful panorama from MPR's Tim Post from under Hidden Falls. http://www.flickr.com/photos/timpost/4245446266/
Snow and Ice Management companies attempted to plow the snow out of the way as fast as possible so it didn’t freeze to the pavement but it was to no avail. The asphalt was much colder than the air temperature and it froze solid.
After it froze, the bone-chilling, arctic air invaded and it has been brutally cold since. Rock salt (the most economical deicer) melts down to about 15 degrees and then becomes pretty ineffective in melting snow and ice. There are other products we tried that advertise melting down to -20 but had little success getting through the 2+ inches of ice in some places.
I noticed something very interesting yesterday while I was checking sites and working with our crews sanding to try and gain some traction.
This video – if you look very closely while Ernesto is stepping on the ice – illustrates pretty well how our salt is working – from the bottom up! The thawed ice underneath is coming out the holes the salt burrowed through the ice to the bottom. The warmer 7 degrees yesterday caused some melting in sunny areas but all of that melting was the bottom layer of ice because our salt melted through the ice and settled on the asphalt causing the bottom to melt and not the top. We quickly began applying more salt to lots yesterday afternoon to the top of the ice and saw some good results today in our balmy 15 degree temperatures.
This week, the Star Tribune posted a nice article on what the cities are doing to help rid themselves of the ice on side streets and lots.
Sunday will hopefully exorcise our ghost of Christmas snow past with temperatures in the mid-twenties.
Have a wonderful night!
Brad
Quercus, Inc. 