As always, with storms like this, we see large fluctuations in the forecasts but it seems likely that we will see upwards of 30-35cm come down by the time all is said and done.
Every year we seem to have at least one or two notable major winter storms. The largest of them usually gets dubbed as Snowmaggedon and that is exactly what we are looking at approaching us tonight and tomorrow.
Timing & Limitations
Storms like these are probably some of the worst to manage because of how long it will take to actually finish this storm. As you can imagine, we can’t run our operators for 48 hours straight.
We have looked at the timing of the forecasted storm and this is what we can see. The idea here is to illustrate the accumulation pattern, and the particular accumulation of snow between 4am and 9am, where accumulation could reach 3cm/hour.
- Wednesday at 6pm: 2cm
- Wednesday at 9pm: 5cm
- Thursday at 12am: 8cm
- Thursday at 3am: 9cm
- Thursday at 6am: 17cm
- Thursday at 9am: 24cm
- Thursday at 12pm: 27cm
It will continue to snow Thursday during the afternoon but only produce an additional 1-3cm after 1pm. Of course, all of this can change as the storm actually hits but this is the data we have at the moment.
With the above in mind, we will be starting the operators at 4AM for a Quick Pass to open up the driveways quickly before the city starts the graders sometime between 7:00-9:00AM. The operators will continue to make their way around their routes likely servicing all clients 3 times during this storm.
Shovel teams will be starting at 3pm once the bulk of the snow has come down.
What can you do to help?
As mentioned by the city and Environment Canada, if at all possible, make arrangements to stay home while we take care of cleaning up this mess. Of course, we know that not everyone has that luxury so we wish you a safe commute.
Since our shovel teams will be starting significantly later than our operators, walkways will not be completed until tomorrow evening. This will be a very physically demanding storm and our guys will be doing their best to serve all clients as quickly as we can.
If you decide to shovel around vehicles yourself, please push the snow at least 4 feet past any vehicles so our operators can blow it for you.