Commercial Winter Summaries

November

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Wednesday, November 20 : An inch or so, but a coating to a half inch stuck for awhile

During the morning hours of Wednesday, 11/20 - we did have a band of snow move through. It did dust the grassy areas and/or raised colder surfaces. But on pavement, it mostly melted with the warmer ground temperatures at the time of this event.

Through the day, snow showers continued to spin around a low pressure system and usher cooler air in as the temps dropped. Most snow accumulation during the day was light, and once again not on pavement.

Later in the afternoon on the same day through the evening, we had a couple heavy bursts of snow that ended up covering and creating ice on pavement. The pavement temps continued to drop, combined with no more chemical on the roads, then it became dicey, even on highways.

If you are signed up for salting sidewalks and/or parking lots, C N’R did go out to complete a full salting route for all commercial properties. This was all finished up by 10pm that evening.

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December

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 2 : 0.4”

We had another coating of snow that fell very slowly between about 11pm - 4am. Parking lots were holding about .25”-.40” of snow, and sidewalks were closer to a half inch. Early during the morning of Monday, 12/2 - we shoveled commercial sidewalks and added plenty of salt as the recent cold temps have really cooled ground temps down and any moisture now is becoming ice quickly. Also, all parking lots signed up for “parking lot” salt were salted. Also, quick note, if you are a commercial property where we do not do any work unless we do get 1” or more of snow, we did not complete any work on these accounts for this particular event.

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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4 : Rain to sleet/snow showers, then a flash freeze

During the morning hours, we had a powerful cold front move through that brought a quick batch of rain, freezing rain, sleet, then snow showers. The band of rain/freezing rain/sleet came through in a line with this powerful front. So it did not last long, but it was strong and the sleet started to accumulate. The rest of the day was just snow bursts and snow showers.

When the line came through it was about 33-34 degrees at about 9am, and by noon we were down to 23 degrees with wind gusts from 35-45 mph. You can imagine that things froze up quickly so this was a salting event.

All commercial properties signed up for salting of sidewalks, we checked on all sidewalks, but some did not need much attention. Some did. Same with parking lot salt, some needed attention and some did not. Why did some not need attention? Because we just heavily salted a couple days ago, plus the strong winds helped dry things somewhat as the temps dropped, therefore there was less icing than expected.

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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11 : 0.4"

We had another cold blast roll through the area basically from about 11pm on 12/10 until about 3-4am on 12/11 (very early in the morning). This blast brought another similar bout of snow along the front and dropped a heavy fluffy coating of about 0.4”, maybe 0.5” in spots, and in some areas we were measuring more like 0.2-0.3”. Some areas may seem thicker because the winds picked up after it was done snowing and blew the fluffy snow around. The snow liquid ratio was in that 15:1-18:1 range. That means it had very little water content.

This was NOT plowable. Even if we tried to scrape a little bit up, it was such a small amount because of the high ratio. So, this became a heavy salting event just like the last couple. We salted/shoveled commercial sidewalks, and we salted parking lots. If you have an agreement with C N’R that is only perform plowing and shoveling at 1” or more, we did not hit that threshold, therefore these particular properties were not touched. If you are signed up for sidewalk salting, then you were shoveled and salted.

This took place between about 3am - 8am that morning.

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SATURDAY/SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14/15 : 0.1” snow, plus ice/sleet accumulation

Prior to this smaller storm system arriving our surface temperatures were 15 degrees. So, anything that fall and melts is going to freeze and/or re-freeze. All day on Saturday, December 14 we received freezing rain, some sleet, and some snow mixing in. It was off and on with breaks, etc. Some sidewalks were melting due to salt residue, some were not. Same with parking lots. But, during the later afternoon/evening, we had a stronger band move through with freezing rain and snow mixed in. This made for all parking lots (who are signed up for regular salting) needing salt, therefore, during the afternoon/evening of 12/14, we applied parking lot salt.
We waited on sidewalks as freezing fog/drizzle continued through the night, so sidewalks were attended to as needed during the morning hours of Sunday, 12/15.

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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17 : coating

During the evening hours of Tuesday, 12/17 - between about 4pm-8pm, we had a band of very light snow move through. This was a system that had very small dendrites (snow flakes) with low moisture content. It was first advertised that this system could bring a half inch or even close to an inch of snow, but it took a more southern track along I-90, but clipped us with a period of light snow which coated parking lots.

The current salt residue on sidewalks was mostly taking care of this little snowfall and melting it off, but the parking lots were not as much and it required for C N’R to go property to property and salt parking lots as necessary. We used our best judgement to salt lots that needed it, or areas that needed in particular parking lots. There were also some parking lots that did not need it that we ended up not applying salt. So, we are trying to be cost conscious for salting due to many rounds of salting this month, and only doing what was necessary.

This was all completed before midnight that evening (all the parking lot salting).

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Thursday, December 19 : 6.0"

A STRONG ALBERTA CLIPPER

TIMING? The worst possible timing any storm can be. WHY? Because when snow starts to accumulate at 3-4am, and it snows rather hard at that time, it is too early to plow properties because nothing has accumulated until daybreak. Therefore, when customers come in to work or wake up at their residents and see a bunch of snow out there, perhaps they may think it was snowing all night when it was not. The bulk of this snow fell on Thursday morning between about 6am & 11am.

HOW THE SNOW FELL (TIMING):
 - Thursday morning 12/19: Onset = 3-4am.
 - Most of the snow fell between 6am - 11am
  - 12pm, Thursday, 12/19: about 4-6” on the ground
  - 12pm until about 6pm: On and off snow showers (this did add up to another 1-2” slowly but surely)
  - 9pm-midnight, Thursday 12/19: Another band moves through, drops about 1/2” or less (so a coating of snow)

OPERATIONS:

 - Battled through the elements opening commercial parking lots between about 5am and noon. This process took a long time. Why? Because of traffic on roads, because of cars in parking lots. Because of side roads and main roads really not plowed until 10am—noon-ish - it was just slow going and when you get this type of timing for a snowfall event, it becomes generally a disaster for any efforts towards cleaning parking lots up. It got to a point where once we did have everything “under control” and good enough for commercial properties to be good enough for the rest of the day - we just let everything be and re-plowed everything fully the night of Thursday into early Friday morning. But, due to this timing, some commercial properties required a SECOND opening, during the day because of the continuing slowly snow falling through the day, and also depending on when we arrived at any particular property. If we arrived earlier to your property, this is good, right? Well, yes, it looks good for that moment but when you are first, then there is more snow on the property 3 hours later as opposed to other properties we were just starting 3 hours later.

 - SHOVELING? Commercial properties were shoveled 2-3x each, again just depends on timing. Applying salt to sidewalks was completed multiple times as well to assure traction throughout the day. Invoices will reflect this as well as the multiple trips to properties to completed salting and/or shoveling

 - PARKING LOT SALT? This was completed during the very early morning hours of Friday, 12/20. Just one time after the dust settled. It did not make sense to salt while it was snowing all day on Thursday, and because things were so frozen and compacted, a heavy layer of salt was applied in the end. Alberta Clippers are “cold” storms. Usually snow falls for Alberta Clippers at the temperature range of 10-20 degrees. This creates less melting during the storm and more snow compaction.

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28 : Pre-salting after hard rain washed out all the salt residue.

After a hard rain the day/night before, all salt has now been washed away. We went out to lightly sprinkler salt on sidewalks and important parking spots, and some loading docks just to get some current residue in place. Why? Because we are expecting some freezing fog over the next couple of nights, so having a base of salt down is essential.

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SUNDAY, 12/29 INTO MONDAY, 12/30 : Freezing Fog

As stated in our last summary for the previous day, we have been experiencing a stagnent atmosphere, and moist conditions leading to dense fog. And when the temps drop below freezing, it becomes freezing fog on surfaces. The previous day, we Pre-Salted things. This helped a lot, but when more dense fog did come in during the night of Saturday 12/28 in into Sunday (all day sunday), it not only started to freeze, but it activated all our pre-salt, so we had to lay down another layer of salt on sidewalks. We salted some parking lots during the morning of Sunday 12/29. Also, salted more parking lots going into the next day, Monday, 12/30 due to continuing fog freezing on surfaces.

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January

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 9TH AND FRIDAY, JANUARY 10TH : 0.4"

Later during the day on Thursday, 1/9 = we did receive a snow band that created just less than a half inch in most places. Some areas only had like 0.2” or 0.3”. This made for parking lots and sidewalks to be a slippery/greasy condition. During the evening of Thursday 1/9, particularly between 6pm-10pm, we shoveled and salted all commercial sidewalks if you are signed up for shoveling and/or salting for under an inch of snow. Also, late that night 1/9 into very early morning of 1/10, this required the HEAVIEST salting of the season because the snow coating was thick enough, temps were getting colder, and it was under the snow plow threshold of 1” or more. This was a pure shoveling/salting event.

Then, during the day the next day, we continued to get “snow globe” snow showers that ended up re-greasing things up, temps were falling still, and parking lots turned slushy and wet from the salt that was put down the night before. As the temps dropped, we did get some “re-freezing” where we had to apply parking lot salt once again and also re-salt some sidewalks. During the morning of 1/10, that is when we re-salted some sidewalks. During the night of 1/10 into 1/11 is when we re-salted parking lots that were “re-freezing”. This was essential to do for the safety of cars/walkers on parking lots and sidewalks.

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 SUNDAY, JANUARY 12 : 1.0"

During the very early morning hours of Sunday, 1/12 - we received some light snow with a clipper system moving through. Forecast was for 1-3”. By 4am on Sunday morning 1/12 - we really only had a quarter inch of new snowfall, plus at that time it was misting compacting the coating of snow that already fell. Then, between the hours of 4am-8am on Sunday morning, the back end (wrap-a-round) of this system changed the mist into light snow, and it actually did get a bit moderate at times. This gave us our inch or so of snow overall, and this became a full plowing/shoveling/salting event.

This was a “Sunday” - some businesses we plow were not open. These properties were plowed and/or shoveled later in the day on Sunday. But, for those properties that were open, we started to plow around 5am that morning until 10am-ish. Yes, it was still snowing when we started, but because businesses were open, we had to get going.

In the end, some sidewalks were done multiple times that day as far as shoveling and salting due to falling temps with “snow-globe” snow showers off and on all day which coated things over again. With the temps falling dramatically, we raced to put salt down in parking lots that afternoon, and then did more salting that night. That night, the temps were so cold so fast, that once again we had flash freezing going on, and we grabbed some stronger (coated) salt to help penetrate the ice with temps going below zero. It definitely has been a salty year!

Finally, on Sunday night, we had to re-plow portions of parking lots due to wind. More on that via the next summary written below.

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BEFORE SUNRISE, MONDAY MORNING, JANUARY 13 : Touch-up plowing due to extreme winds blowing snow off roofs

After our smaller 1” + event during the day on Sunday, January 12th, the day got very cold and wrap around NW winds started to howl. As we finished all commercial parking lots and sidewalk shoveling/salting that afternoon, the winds picked up shortly after. These winds kept going most of the night into early Monday morning. We went back out to check on blowing into parking lots from roof tops and found some areas to re-plow. Not everything needed something, but we did re-plow portions of many parking lots. No more than an “opening” fee will be charged for this because it is never a FULL plow. But, to be fair to us as a company, this came after we did plow everything in full, so it is considered a separate event and we will be fair to all our customers the best we can as usual.

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March

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april

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Go to:  November    December    January    February   March   April

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