Blizzard 2015 Boston

[IslandTractor]

The media is doing its usual hype. It's a pain to get around, but major highways are fine as are most state roads outside the inner city. No issues with supplies getting in. The biggest issue people are having is clearing a path for heating fuel to be delivered is on oil or propane. Still no fun, but not on the scale of something like a hurricane.

Agree. We are actually quite used to this, the only real difference is to get three of these storms in a short period. Luckily they have all been light powdery snow so the physical challenge isn't that bad.

 

[KubotainNH]

The good thing is it's fluffy and light, the bad thing is it doesn't pack down too well and we've had no warm days to make it pack into itself. The snowbanks are crazy high and the roads are skinny. Today I used the tractor to pull banks down in my driveway so my son could blow the snow as far as possible. At least we have some yard to put it in. Had to knock down the banks because I couldn't push it any farther with my truck plow. I now have a bit of breathing room.

For added reach, a few years ago I made a pusher made of steel tube with 2x8's bolted to the front of the steel. It locks onto the front of my tractor bucket so gives me maybe 30 inches of extra reach from that lip. I can knock the top of the banks down and stack the snow pretty well with this setup.

 

[Garandman]

Methuen is N of Boston on the MA/NH border.

Methuen sees rash of snowblower thefts - Weather - Boston.com

Methuen police says six snowblowers have been stolen in town since late January, including three on Monday alone.

Capt. Randy Haggar described the snowblower thefts as 荘a crime of opportunity鋳 and says in most cases they were left outside, unattended and unsecured.

 

[IslandTractor]

Methuen is N of Boston on the MA/NH border.

Methuen sees rash of snowblower thefts - Weather - Boston.com

There is something rather charmingly pathetic about that story. Takes some cojones to grab a big snowblower out of an open garage though. Not exactly like a bicycle they can hop on and drive away!

Wish I had a $1300 snowblower and if I did I'd keep it in the locked garage (right next to my $600 snowblower and $150 lawnmower).

 

[Red Horse]

How about this for dumb *** move of the year. I think it was Monday night- TV shows aerial of one of the "snow lots" where they had a snow melter set up. First question should be..."how much snow can this unit process per hour?" right? Noooo! Aerial shot shows about 5 or 6 good sized loaders operating at very slow speed in a circular motion...grab bucket,proceed to melter- next machine grabs bucket etc etc.

then another shot of a first class snow blower-something like a sicard or one of those with separate rear mount engine for blower. Hydraulicly directed discharge off blower. Guy is going down street and directing discharge to sidewalk! I think this was in one of the No shore towns-Salem or Marblehead. Guess it never occurred to them to discharge into a truck. Then again someones relative would be denied job of loading out stuff from sidewalk with his skid steer!

 

[IslandTractor]

How about this for dumb *** move of the year. I think it was Monday night- TV shows aerial of one of the "snow lots" where they had a snow melter set up. First question should be..."how much snow can this unit process per hour?" right? Noooo! Aerial shot shows about 5 or 6 good sized loaders operating at very slow speed in a circular motion...grab bucket,proceed to melter- next machine grabs bucket etc etc.

then another shot of a first class snow blower-something like a sicard or one of those with separate rear mount engine for blower. Hydraulicly directed discharge off blower. Guy is going down street and directing discharge to sidewalk! I think this was in one of the No shore towns-Salem or Marblehead. Guess it never occurred to them to discharge into a truck. Then again someones relative would be denied job of loading out stuff from sidewalk with his skid steer!

Those snow melters have gotten a lot of press but I am unconvinced that they add much. I think they do something like 150-200 tons an hour. Might sound like a lot but a decent sized front end loader can pick up a couple of tons of snow in one load so that means that even if it takes the loader a full minute to cycle (load to melter to load), three front end loaders as a team could pretty much max out the melter. Three loaders worth ain't nothin but given that there are probably at least a hundred of them working full time in Boston right now, that is still a drop in the bucket.

As for the big sidewalk snowblowers, our town owns a couple. While the residents are responsible for keeping the sidewalk clear, almost everyone clears just one home size snowblower width of sidewalk. The town runs their tracked four foot diesel machine pretty much 24 hours a day and it is quite impressive at clearing sidewalks. I was also impressed, when I heard the thing coming down our street at about 3am, to see that the operator was being careful to continuously adjust the discharge direction so he wasn't filling up shoveled driveways and front walks as he went. The town is also pretty considerate of the fact that it is impossible to run that type of machine without occasionally gouging a lawn. The DPW comes through the town every spring and reseeds damaged areas along the sidewalk. Little stuff but evidence that town government isn't all just graft and favoritism.

 

[rekees4300]

Why can't the snow simply be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean?

 

[IslandTractor]

Why can't the snow simply be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean?

It can if necessary but "snow" as scraped off of streets etc is not exactly clean stuff so pollution becomes a concern. Not enough to prevent it from being done if there really is no other place to put it or process it but enough of a concern that it isn't the first choice.

 

[Garandman]

Why can't the snow simply be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean?

Clean Water Act prohibits it under normal circumstances. Some states allow emergency dumping: Boston has been given authorization to do so.

Apparently Boston has now purchased their own snow melters in addition to those on loan from MassPort and Northeastern University. Mayor says we are melting 6,000 tons per day.

The city's plow budget for the season was $18.5 million. Cost so far: $30 million.

 

[leonz]

They need to build a couple of snow melting barns with pits that can be dumped
into by standard dump trucks like they use on Hokkaido Island.

The melt water in the pits is below the boiling point in the pits and they do not
waste a lot effort in melting the snow.

The trucks back up to the railing/wheel stop edge and dump and
the loads slide right out into the hot water.

They could heat the water/snow with a battery of 4-8 Keystoker KG-22 coal stoker boilers
plumbed in line at a very low operating cost per hour to make a almost 2-4 million BTU per hour
of hot water energy with the melt water piping routed to the bottom of the melting pit and using
110 volt power for the boilers and the 2 circulating pumps and a trailer load of anthracite coal to do it.

It would not take much to do it other than beating back the bureaucrats for some space to do it in a couple of places
and the plumbing would be self contained and not connected to the water mains as the single unpressurised water tank for the 4-8
coal stoker boilers would use one pump for circulating the heated water through the piping used for melting the snow could be filled
by a water delivery truck.

The plumbing is simple and the installation would be fast and ready for the next winter quickly-it would take longer to excavate the pit and
pour the base foundation and the concrete walls of the melting pit than it would to install the boilers and the simple plumbing and piping loops.