Despite warm weather, DOT has to start thinking about winter

MASON CITY — With record or near-record temperatures to start the week, the last thing people are probably thinking about is snow, but with the calendar turning to November later this week, the Iowa Department of Transportation has to be prepared for winter weather.

The DOT’s Pete Hjelmstad says some of their trucks have already been outfitted with a plow blade.   “I believe it’s October 15th we have to have at least one truck ready to go, but if the plows aren’t on, they have all the brackets on and everything, so it’s more or less just a pretty quick attachment process. They have been out calibrating the trucks to make sure everything is set right as far as the sand-salt mixture or the brine, so they’ve been calibrated. Yeah, we’re ready to go when that time comes.”

Hjelmstad says their salt supply is at capacity after a mild winter last year.   “We buy all of our salt, the majority of our salt, we enter into our contracts in the spring, because that’s when it is the cheapest, and that’s why we stockpile it in our salt shed. Yes, because of how little we used last year, we are at, I can’t remember the exact percentage, but like 120% capacity. We’ve got all of our salt storage facilities full to the brim, so we’re ready to go.”

Hjelmstad says while many would like to have a winter like last year, he doesn’t totally expect it.  “Our forecasting service is predicting overall a warmer winter, but there will be several different stretches of cold weather, so kind of an up and down thing the way it sounds.”

Accuweather’s long-range forecast shows no mention of snow until early December.