As Washington, DC, digs out from two feet of snow a week before Christmas, another round of winter weather paralyzed Christmas Day travel in the US midwest. A picture is worth a thousand words. It seems we've enjoyed above-average snow and ice events since the recent global warming confab in Copenhagen.

Weather forecasts from London's Met office for a "probably mild" winter and "light snow" December 21 were not just mistakes, according to WeatherAction long-range weather and climate forecasters. The easy-winter forecasts were designed to please the
Government’s ‘Global warming’ ideology when the forecasting method used has consistently failed," maintains WeatherAction.
WeatherAction says its models predicted the huge storms that immobilized the UK (and Copenhagen) at the end of the Global Warming summit last week. Moreover, the group forecasts major snowstorms in January and predicts "Salt to run out -- again."
Most snowfighters, whether they subscribe to the global warming hypothesis, know the vagaries of weather require prudent preparation so we doubt the Brits will have a salt shortage.

The Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Operations has published an important benchmarking report on use of performance measures which assesses state DOT adoption and effectiveness of harnessing new techniques and technologies to improve roadway operations impaired by adverse weather conditions.

As FHWA reports, “The impact of weather events on roadway safety and capacity is substantial.” Two measures, in particular, address major concerns for those dedicated to improving winter roadway safety and mobility. They are:

• The percentage of time a roadway meets safety and capacity level of service (LOS) standards during and after weather events (normalized by the frequency/intensity of winter events), and
• The reduction in roadway user costs as measured in traffic delays, crashes, vehicle operating costs, emissions and salt damage attributable to road weather strategies.

As the Salt Institute has argued, FHWA concludes that “national level statistics do no exist yet to directly measure” the goal of measuring safety and LOS/capacity impairment. Nearly a third of agencies (32%) measure “time to wet/bare pavement.” Only 4% measure “percent of time that lanes are open during a weather event, 7% measure “pavement friction,” 11% measure “time to pre-event travel speeds after a weather event” and 18% measure “customer satisfaction with maintenance and recover time.” Another 25% use undefined additional performance indicators.

While performance measures are “in an early phase of deployment,” there is better news in adoption of new operations strategies. New Sensible Salting techniques are being adopted. Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS) is credited with reducing crashes by 17% and anti-icing by 83%, but since the latter figure is equivalent to the 85% crash reduction in using older deicing techniques, the finding hardly represents great progress.

Snow and ice on roadways cause significant service degradation, the report explains, cutting roadway capacity by 25% or more (to say nothing of the number of would-be drivers who abandon planned trips entirely). Free-flow speed declines 19% in snow conditions. Despite this reduced load, weather-impaired roads are the cause of 22% of all injury and fatal traffic crashes, half of them due to slick roadway surface conditions. Overall, weather causes more than 500 million vehicle-hours of delays every year, the report documents. “Most of this estimated delay (90 percent) was due to snow in urban areas.”

Pursuit of road weather performance measures “has enabled and continues to strive for a culture shift among traffic operators to a more proactive weather management approach that in turn will improve safety and capacity,” the report concludes. The federal program is also “undertaking studies relevant to safety, including studies of the microscopic and macroscopic behavior of traffic in inclement weather conditions, weather-sensitive traffic prediction and estimation modeling, and evaluation of the effectiveness and safety implications of road weather advisory and control information.” FHWA is promoting its Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) to automate winter operations and participating in the IntelliDrive program to harness new “smart car” technology to improve road weather operations.

An evaluation of road deicing alternatives directed by Xianming Shi and Laura Fay of the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University and conducted for the Colorado Department of Transportation examined common chloride, acetate and ag byproduct deicers and concluded:

• Corrosion-inhibited salt (NaCl) and mag chloride (MgCl2) is preferred "until better deicer alternatives are identified."
• Training, calibration and minimized application rates -- the essence of the Salt Institute's Sensible Salting program -- are key to minimizing adverse environmental impacts.
• Chlorides in the environment did not exceed the water quality standard. This is an aesthetic standard for taste, not a health standard.

The report formulated a "deicer composite index" similar to that published a few years ago as NCHRP Report 577 . The model, like that of Report 577, allows local customization. Using the current weighting for Colorado users, the method validated current CDOT user priorities ("the inhibited liquid MgCl2 deicer products present a better alternative than either the non-inhibited NaCl or the K- or Na-acetate/formate deicers").

Better watch out. Better not slide. Better watch out; I'm telling you why. Officials who don't clear roads, may lose their jobs.

Citizens know when you are sleeping; they know when you're awake. They know when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.

Tis the season for a little reminder to government officials: Ignore winter maintenance at your peril because there are a number of legendary examples of officials who have had worse than coal in their stockings.

In New York City during the winter of '68-'69, Republican mayor John Lindsey was held responsible for a snow removal debacle in the borough of Queens. He had the poor judgment to go out in his limo to survey the mess and his limo was stuck in the snow. He was retrieved by rescuers in a four-wheel drive--a complete public relations disaster.

During the harsh winter of '78 and '79 in Chicago, Mayor Michael Bilandic was labeled as incompetent for the city's failure to adequately clear roads. His opponent used this to her advantage during the campaign and pundits blame the snow for Bilandic's defeat.

In Washington DC in 1996, infamous Mayor Marion Barry took a bit less heat for disastrous snow removal efforts mostly because residents in the District were accustomed to the city's inadequate snow response. In fact, if you look at the antics of Marion Barry, you might draw the conclusion that the citizens were willing to overlook most any bad behavior.

And more recently, the Valentine's Day Blizzard of 2007 drastically affected the eastern half of North America, halting commerce and causing 37 deaths. In Pennsylvania, officials were under attack by residents who believed that they did not adequately respond to the snowfall. Although citizens don't need a study to know that salting and plowing saves lives, a study by Marquette University details the safety benefits of proper winter maintenance.

Since there is also an economic cost to poor winter maintenance, in this tough economy, we encourage officials to keep the roads clear for commerce and for the safety of their residents. They know when you've been bad or good. It is a little difficult to hide poor winter maintenance (video ).