Bruce Watson writing in DailyFinance.com asks this highly-pertinent question as snowfalls forced cancelations and postponements throughout the Washington metro area and beyond. Watson's quest: to measure "the overall economic cost of a few inches of snow." Watson reports:

(A) month ago, when Europe was crushed by a massive snowstorm, newspapers quickly began to assess the cost of the unplanned holiday. The storm, which some hailed as the worst in twenty years, shut down highways, airports, and rail yards, killing business and leading many Brits to question whether the country, which had famously worked throughout the London Blitz, had lost its resolve.
Initial estimates, which placed the price at millions of dollars, were quickly revised upward. One in five people stayed home from work, decimating productivity. Ultimately, the cost in lost wages and business were pegged at somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.3 billion.

Salt Sensibility readers will remember last winter's $22 billion debacle in China .

Fortunately, we have an answer for Mr. Watson, as we posted on his website:

Great question: quantifying the benefits of snowfighting since snow & ice removal is the single largest public works expense for most snowbelt communities.
The Salt Institute has gathered the relevant data at http://www.saltinstitute.org/Uses-benefits/Winter-road-safety/Benefits-of-road-salt/Mobility .
Bottom line: if an agency fails to perform effective winter maintenance, the resulting gridlock for a single day will impose a greater economic cost on the local economy than the total snowfighting budget in that community for an entire winter.

Thanks for the opportunity to spread the word.

Two tough winters, back-to-back, may yet yield a silver lining. The difficulty in gaining access to sufficient quantities of salt has spurred many communities to invest in larger and better salt storage facilities. This will have a stabilizing effect on markets and is likely to greatly increase the degree of confidence with which communities face future winters.

The Fond du Lac Reporter ran an excellent story today describing the investment the city will be making in new salt storage facilities. From what we've heard, many other communities are doing exactly the same thing.

This news is greatly welcomed as the Salt Institute has for a very long time been recommending this very action. One of the problems with salt is that it is really a very reasonably priced product, considering the critical function it plays. Its reasonable price has occasionally made people forget that it is a strategic commodity for winter weather. We could not survive our winters without it and, like all other strategic materials management, everyone has to play a role in ensuring it is at the right place at the right time. This means sufficient salt storage closer to where it will be used.

Calls for supplies of salt in the dead of winter, the worst possible time for distribution, may not always be simple to respond to. Resorting to the blame game doesn't accelerate deliveries. The movement of salt from the mines to the road surface must reflect an infrastructure that includes more storage closer to the scene of action. It is good to see structures like the one in Fond du Lac going up.