Fresh Podcast: MPCA Road Salt Education

Good afternoon! We skipped a week because of Thanksgiving, but the weekly podcast is back talking about MPCA’s Road Salt Education. There is a class coming up Dec 9 that is VERY helpful in understanding the effects salt has in our environment. Check it out!

Don’t forget you can subscribe in iTunes (recommended!) or YouTube, or subscribe to our Blog to be alerted when a new podcast appears. (Here is a little video on RSS Feeds.) Lastly, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter for all the really good, juicy updates!

Have a great week!

Brad

EPISODE NOTES

MPCA’s Road Salt Website

2009 Road Salt Symposium Brochure

List of Road Salt Training Certificate Holders (Please consider those who are certified when choosing a snow and ice management provider.)

The Weather is A-Changin’

Good morning –

I woke up today with multiple texts and facebook posts from family/friends in Dallas that it is snowing

Dallas, TX this morning. http://www.flickr.com/photos/xostefaknee/4152431905/

there this morning! Crack out the winter coats because our MN weather is changing. We are heading into a cold period – but more about that in a bit.

The weather has been anything but normal lately. Here are my top goofy weather items from the past few weeks:

1) No measurable snow fell in the entire month of November in the Twin Cities. We were out one time to check for icy conditions and applied a little deicing salt but that was it.

2) 2nd warmest November on record with 42.9 degrees. (#1 is 2001 @ 46.4) Even more amazing, MPR’s Updraft Blog says is it is only the 3rd November in the past 118 years with an average above 40 degrees.

3) Minnesota Lakes are experiencing a late freeze-up this year. Clear into Canada, the lakes have yet to ice over as of yesterday. Here is some satellite imagery from yesterday (I learned of this satellite courtesy of Paul Douglas at

Fresh Property Manager’s Landscape Tip Podcast: Salt

Great morning! Here is Episode 2 of The Property Manager’s One Minute Landscape Tip: Salt. Don’t forget to subscribe in iTunes! (Link opens in iTunes.)

Here are some links for more information about De-Icing Materials:

• Snow & Ice Management Association
• University of Minnesota Extension – Minimizing Salt Damage

Please leave comments below on any topics you would like to see covered in the future.

Have a great day!

Brad

Updated Winter Outlook

Good Monday morning to all! I hope you had a great weekend – or at least a great Sunday in Minnesota.

We drove to Iowa over the weekend to help my family with harvest but the wettest, coldest (by 4 degrees!) early October in recorded history didn’t allow for any combining to happen.

A couple of months ago I wrote about a couple of winter weather predictions. The National Weather Service has updated its winter outlook with a few tasty tidbits. They are still predicting a warmer winter. El Nino averages 3 degrees warmer than other years. However the precipitation is tough to predict from an El Nino with swings from 17″ in 1984-85 to 84″ in 1991-92. They have solidified their equal chances for above or below average precipitation this winter.

Our fall cleanups are also running far behind schedule this year due to the impressively wet fall. The leaves are finally falling, but yesterday and today have been the first days we have gotten out to work on cleanups and it looks like the rest of the week will be a bust as well.

Have a great week!

Brad

UPDATED: Early October Snow Breaks Record (Unofficially)

3" of perfect snowman-making snow!

UPDATE: Snow officially breaks record for the earliest, largest snow with 2.5″. I had 3.75″ on my deck even with melting.

Good morning! We’ve got nearly 3″ of snow in Shakopee at 9:00 am today. This unofficially breaks the record of 2.5″ for the biggest, early (before Oct 15) snow in the Twin Cities. Nothing is sticking on the roads so no plowing but it is beautiful if you don’t think about all the corn and beans sitting idle in the fields. At least we didn’t get what North Platte, Nebraska got over the weekend. Ouch.

Have a great day!

Brad

Quercus, Inc. Snow & Ice Management Journal

We are all ready for snow tonight and tomorrow – I think! I can’t imagine it will be a lot of snow, but we’ll have to see what happens.

One neat thing we are doing this year for our clients is a Snow and Ice Management Journal (or follow the Quick Link on the right). It will have updates on official storm reports, links to weather sites, information on how we are handling winter events and our outlook on life through the lens of Snow and Ice Management.

Here are our first and second posts.

Have a great night!

Brad

One of the first winter predictions I’ve seen this year…

Good Monday morning! Minnesota Public Radio’s Updraft Blog shows us one of the first winter weather predictions I have seen this year. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center thinks we will se an above average temperatures and average precipitation this winter. MPR’s Craig Edwards believes NOAA is demonstrating unusual confidence about our temperatures because we are going to experience ‘El Nino’ this winter. He also notes that NOAA was dramatically wrong last winter with regard to our brutally cold weather in Minnesota.

Is it really time to think about snow removal?!?!

Have a great week!

Brad