Snow, Freezing Rain, Rain and then Snow. When to clear up?

[Danny C]

Today I was in a darned if you do, darned if you don't situation. We had 10-15cm (4-6") of snow followed by rain with another 20mm (3/4") of rain over night. That part is easy; plow before the rain and scrape it down good to minimize ice. Problem is that we've had no snow and it's been really cold the past few days making the ground very cold and the rain freezes on contact until the ground warms sufficiently.

So the dilema was plow while still snowing and deal with ice for a few hours or wait. I chose the former and it turned out to be the right call as not much ice was made.

 

[CobyRupert]

So many factors. Current temp and precip, the immediate forecast, the long term forecast, how much has accumulated. One of the biggest factors is how much traffic my driveways will get if I do delay. For some reason, everybody (family, tenenats, visitors) suddenly has to drive everywhere when I'm trying to hold off. :banghead:

If it's warming up, I snowblow sooner rather than waiting for more slush, unless it will all melt by itself in a day or two. Unless your going to get freezing rain. A good time for slush, is if its cooling right as it crystallizes, before it turns to solid ice. IF traffic isn't crushing the crystals to solid ice. Again, if it's not raining.

 

[smalltown]

This last storm I waited for the rain to stop on top of the 5" on snow. I was surprised how well the blower cleaned it up. I cleaned up immediately after the rain stopped. Turned out we had about 24 hours before the temps started dropping.

 

[skyhook]

So many factors. Current temp and precip, the immediate forecast, the long term forecast, how much has accumulated. One of the biggest factors is how much traffic my driveways will get if I do delay. For some reason, everybody (family, tenenats, visitors) suddenly has to drive everywhere when I'm trying to hold off. :banghead:

If it's warming up, I snowblow sooner rather than waiting for more slush, unless it will all melt by itself in a day or two. Unless your going to get freezing rain. A good time for slush, is if its cooling right as it crystallizes, before it turns to solid ice. IF traffic isn't crushing the crystals to solid ice. Again, if it's not raining.

I'm in the same boat, traffic wise,,we just recently got a good 25cm of snow, had to plow twice.
After the last time, freezing rain started and made a mess of things.
I'm thinking on raising the skid shoes to about a three inch space under the plow in cases like this.
I would or could have raised the shoes on the last final pass avoiding the skating rink theory.
Wondering if that would work or not.

 

[check]

Yes, it can be very tricky. I had to plow about a foot of snow on Monday that had fallen over the weekend, and, prior to that point, the (gravel ) driveway was clear and bare from the previous snowmelt.

So, it was like starting all over again, because I did not have a hard packed snow base, and thus I had to be very careful with how high off the ground the snowblower was. In several places I caught some gravel and sent it flying, which is not good! (Fortunately, there were no windows or vulnerable buildings etc. close by.)

It was -20 Celsius, so the snow was plenty cold enough, and easy to throw. But, I still needed to reestablish a hard packed base. So I left about 2-3 inches wherever I could, and then drove back and forth over it with the tractor, to make a base for the next snowfall. It is so much easier to blow snow when you can just let the blower drop all the way down to the ground, knowing that there's a nice hard pack base there underneath whatever snow has fallen!

Tomorrow night the wind chills will make it -33 Celsius, so I am glad I'm not going to be there!

 

[woodchipper]

if there is a few inches of snow on the ground, and it starts raining, and that the cold will return within a day, then I will wait until it freezes over to clear the road. If forecast is more of a real warming, with temps a few degrees above freezing, then I will probably go out quick and clear it all.
There is nothing worse to blow than wet thick snow. Blading in those conditions is also very demanding.
A slim hard pack snow base is the objective that I try to maintain as much as possible. Makes further blading or blowing a fun and relaxing outing!!!!

 

[Danny C]

The key with waiting is to make sure there will be no traffic over the wet snow which will turn it to ice.

 

[hube2]

Sorry for the nero-post, but I'm sitting here waiting for the perfect time to go out to clear my driveway and looking for something to ease my anxiety.

In the last 24 hours we've had snow, turn to sleet and freezing rain. It will soon turn to rain and temp will be above freezing for a couple of hours, then the wind will change from S to WNW and we're going to get a flash freeze followed by 24 hours of heavy snow. Currently I have about 2 to 3 inches of snow covered by a half inch of sleet and there is a crust of ice over that.

While I've been here for many years and and I know that what I'm doing is the right thing to do, it always makes me anxious. I have a steep driveway and ice is my worst enemy.

Anyway, to ease my own mind I was looking for others that follow the same practice of letting the snow sit because snow with a layer of ice on it, even if it gets a little slushy, is better than letting the freezing rain build up a layer of ice on the driveway, found this post and rather than create a new thread that this one could use an boost.

 

[Carl_NH]

Faced with the same situation here this AM - 6" wet snow, now 36* and raining 1/2" expected this afternoon so I went ahead and cleared down to pavement. Now it's mostly clear with some patches of slush.

Sun will be out tomorrow 25* high temp but the sun will clear up the rest it's the shaded areas on the north side or where trees shade the drive is where its most dangerous. so I put down some sand for those areas.

 

[jfsawatzky]

I agree with the previous comments about leaving the snow so that the freezing rain will form a crust that can be easily removed and also prevent a layer of ice after clearing the snow.
There’s one other aspect that I only saw mentioned once… how wet and heavy is the snow? If it’s wet heavy and deep if I am not cautious I will plug the blower and break shear pins. Even driving in low gear and speed does not always help.
One day I want to try and let if freeze up as long as is not too compacted to see if that helps