Snow plows, salt spreaders, brine sprayers and other machinery the Iowa DOT uses to keep our roads clear is being cleaned up and put away.
Winter operations administrator Craig Bargfrede says the winter season officially ends for the DOT on April 15th.
Bargfrede says this just-concluding winter was pretty mild overall, as they’ve created a Winter Severity Index, based on things like storm duration and amount of precipitation, whether it’s snow, sleet, rain or ice.
“Right now, as we sit here today, our winter severity is at 19.83, and that’s about average for what we’ve seen the last couple of years, a lighter winter,” Bargfrede says. “If you go back and look on average over the last 10 years, our winter severity average has been around 24.”
A less severe winter means giant stacks of leftover sand and salt, which can be saved for next winter. Bargfrede told members of the Iowa Transportation Commission at the meeting in February he’s looking at a $1-million dollar cut in the winter budget for key materials like sand and salt.
“My budget this year, I have today about $2-million remaining. We’re in the process of refilling all of our sheds like is our standard procedure and process,” Bargfrede says. “As we come out of winter, we fill up our sheds so that our garages, once they’re filled, shut the doors and they don’t have to worry about it until next season.”
He says any remaining funds are reverted to the construction and project side. While the winter of 2025-26 wasn’t as severe as in past years, Bargfrede says certain events in the past few months truly do stand out.
“I’ve been doing this job 13 years and never in my time in this chair have I had to deal with the closure on I-35 and I-80 pretty much across the state at the same time,” he says. “That storm on March 15th and 16th, even though we didn’t get a lot of snow, the visibility and the winds were just very treacherous.”
Bargfrede says the DOT consulted with the Iowa State Patrol and it was decided to shut down I-35 preemptively, based on the forecast and before the worst of the storm hit. He says the results were very favorable in the corridor with fewer crashes and fewer stranded vehicles.
(Additional reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)