State and city road crews are saving a lot of money due to the lack of snow this December. Annette Dunn, the Iowa Department of Transportation’s winter operations director, is relieved with this week’s weather.
“If this rain had actually been snow, we would’ve been looking at 10 to 15 inches of snow. So, I’m grateful it’s rain,” Dunn said.
At this time last year, D.O.T. plows had already spent around 400 hours clearing snow and ice covered highways. So far this year, crews have only spent 57 hours clearing roads.
The D.O.T. classifies the winter season as October 15 through April 15. “If we look at October 15 through today, our expenditures are significantly less for winter operations than they were this time last year,” Dunn said.
The first official day of winter is December 22.