Mobile weather stations to help Saint John do better job after snowstorms
Picture this: you check the weather on your phone, and you learn snow is moving in.
You get all bundled up and head out, only to find there's barely any snow.
Well, that's just life in the Maritimes, they say.
But the City of Saint John is hoping to ditch this reliance on sometimes faulty weather predictions so it can streamline snow-clearing efforts.
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"We get forecasts in Saint John, but being a coastal community, those aren't necessarily accurate all the time for us," Tim O'Reilly, the city's director of public works, said in an interview with Information Morning Saint John.
The city has now leased five solar-powered, wireless weather stations, to be placed at strategic areas around Saint John.
They will provide real-time video, temperature, humidity and pavement temperature, "which is huge for us in terms of deciding what the best response is going to be," O'Reilly said.
"So all that information is going to be added onto the forecasts that are readily available for us to make better decisions as to attack each storm as they come."
Tim O'Reilly, the city's director of public works, said the weather stations are part of plans to improve snow clearing this winter. (Lane Harrison/CBC)
Relying on weather forecasts alone can lead to errors, such as "overdoing it" and putting down too much salt when it's not needed, O'Reilly said.
"The flip side is we can be under-resourced for a particular storm and get situations where roads and sidewalks are very slippery."z
O'Reilly said Saint John has an annual budget of about $900,000 for salt, so in addition to the environmental benefits, there could be cost savings if the city could cut back on its use.
The new weather stations aren't the only additions hitting the streets this winter season.
Plow-truck upgrades
The city is also adding more "wing plows" to its plow trucks, so that it can plow sidewalks simultaneously with roads.
Depending on what's on the sidewalk and their distance from the pavement, only certain streets allow for this approach. But "it just does it a lot faster and gets to that snow between the sidewalk and the street," O'Reilly said.
Snow plow trucks with wing plows will clear more sections of sidewalks, which are normally cleared by smaller, slower plows. (Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon/CBC)
Areas that currently use this wing-plow method are Loch Lomond Road, Westfield Road and parts of Sand Cove Road. O'Reilly said the new sections of sidewalk to be wing-plowed will be in the same areas.
There will also be a fine of $150 if a snow-removal contractor pushes snow onto sidewalks or streets.
This isn't meant to target homeowners who might shovel tiny amounts onto roads or sidewalks, "but there are situations where plows come in and put big piles of snow on our streets and sidewalks," O'Reilly said.
It's larger snow piles like this one that block sidewalks the city is hoping to crack down on with new $150 fines. (City of Saint John council agenda)
The city is also looking to bulk up its backup fleet once again after selling off all 11 backup trucks in 2020 because of budget cuts.
"That year of 2020 was a hard year for us … every aspect of our city was impacted, including plowing operations," O'Reilly said.
He said the city has built back some backup resources by keeping four older trucks that have been upgraded, so that quality of service isn't affected when newer trucks break down.
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Thumbnail courtesy of City of Saint John council agenda via CBC.
The story was originally written by Sam Farley and published for CBC News.
