“The total amount that we used over the last winter season was 3,073 tons of salt. By comparison, we don’t appear to be coming close to that amount this season,” Lough said.
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Using less road salt isn’t the only warm weather positive for the city. Because of the absence of cold and freezing temperatures, the city has been able to shift their efforts to projects that normally wouldn’t begin until spring, Lough said.
“We have been able to conduct more sewer maintenance projects and catch basin cleaning, as well as tree removals and pruning,” Lough said.
The city has also been able to perform a “good amount” of preventive maintenance on streets, Lough said, like crack sealing and surface patching.
Mandy Dillion, spokesperson with the Ohio Department of Transportation, said their crews have been able to get a head start on things like pothole patching, guard rail replacements and other outdoor work.
Dillion said the department’s manhours working on snow and ice removal is down 60% from last year and the tons salt used is down 44%.
“We’ve spent $33.7 million less than last year at this time. Winter is not over yet, but so far so good,” Dillion said.
David Baumgardner, owner of Whispering Creek Landscaping in New Carlisle, said his crews are still out working — which is not typical in January and February.
“If it’s mild enough, not too wet, we can do some outdoor projects. We just wrapped up a project here in the middle of January. I’m sure there has been many years you couldn’t have projects running this late,” Baumgardner said. “Usually January is just too cold. But this year it’s been above freezing most days.”
Baumgardner said while high temperatures are good for business, it’s nice to catch a break this time of year.
“We’ll usually try to get a little bit of a break this time of year too. If we’re working all the time, we don’t get that break,” Baumgardner said.
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Storm Center 7 Chief Meteorologist McCall Vrydaghs said the biggest drivers of winter weather are El Nino and La Nina patterns, and those aren’t present this year. Another factor is whether the Arctic Oscillation is positive or negative.
“In its positive phase, the winds are stronger and it keeps the colder air up there. Once it goes to negative, then we start to see those lobes of cold air pushing southward, Vrydaghs said. “All winter long, we’ve been in a positive phase, so we have not seen those big dips in the jet stream allowing the colder Arctic and Canadian air to surge southward.”
While there was some snowfall in the area on Friday, the overall pattern is likely to stay warm for the next couple of weeks, Vrydaghs said, with a great chance of cold weather in late February.
“In the first few weeks of February, it doesn’t look like we’re going to have much of a winter blast,” Vrydaghs said.
Until then, crews will continue to make the best of the weather.
“While it’s been a mild winter so far, we remain prepared to respond immediately to inclement weather events,” Lough said.
The Springfield News-Sun is committed to covering weather in Clark and Champaign County.
2,540: Tons of road salt the City of Springfield had used by this time last year
532: Tons of road salt the City of Springfield has used this year
44: Percent decrease in the amount of tons of road salt the Ohio Department of Transportation has used this year, compared to last
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