02-26-2019, 08:14 AM
Every year is different, but this hasn't been a particularly hard winter. There have been some significant temperature swings, but the average temperature in January (-7.9) was pretty close to the average. There was no winter to speak of, really, before January.
It hasn't been a very difficult winter for sidewalk clearing, in my opinion. January and February had less precipitation than normal, and a lot less snow. More freezing rain events (well, two?), but plenty of very mild weather to help with ice clearing.
I saw a temperature of seven degrees on my home thermometer on Sunday the 24th, for instance. If you can't break up some ice on a sidewalk at seven degrees, you aren't probably going to be clearing a sidewalk at all. And, for some people, this is true- yesterday morning, after that thaw, there will still sidewalks in Kitchener with thick layers of ice that had been allowed to persist, now for a full two weeks, and windrows blocking crosswalks for the same length of time.
It hasn't been a very difficult winter for sidewalk clearing, in my opinion. January and February had less precipitation than normal, and a lot less snow. More freezing rain events (well, two?), but plenty of very mild weather to help with ice clearing.
I saw a temperature of seven degrees on my home thermometer on Sunday the 24th, for instance. If you can't break up some ice on a sidewalk at seven degrees, you aren't probably going to be clearing a sidewalk at all. And, for some people, this is true- yesterday morning, after that thaw, there will still sidewalks in Kitchener with thick layers of ice that had been allowed to persist, now for a full two weeks, and windrows blocking crosswalks for the same length of time.