We can thank the little boy — El Nino — for saving money in road department budgets this winter on sand and salt, overtime, fuel and regular hours of plowing and sanding to get rid of all the snow.
For the most part, there was no snow this past winter, and with that, fewer miles put on plow trucks and fewer hours of overtime for public works crews, highway department directors said.
Across central Maine, the winter of 2015-16 featured above normal temperature and above normal precipitation, with well below normal snowfall, according to the National Weather Service.
Skowhegan Road Commissioner Greg Dore said his department has saved $146,000 by not having to send crews out to deal with heavy snowstorms. That saved money goes right back into the town’s general fund, Town Manager Christine Almand said.
“We have had 18 events this year so far, and last year we had over 35 winter events,” Dore said. “I have more than half our overtime budget left and 42 percent of our salt (and) sand budget. “
Blame it on, or credit it to, a near-record strong El Nino season in the tropical Pacific, meteorologists say.
“El Nino” means The Little Boy, or Christ Child, in Spanish. The term refers to the large-scale ocean atmosphere climate interaction linked to warming in sea surface temperature across the Pacific, according to NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — in other words, unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean.
Meteorologist Tom Hawley, at the weather service office in Gray, said Friday that overall temperature in Maine was 5 to 10 degrees above normal this past winter, and that kind of shift can mean the difference between a parked snowplow or one running overtime.
“It certainly means a difference between and rain and snow. In December we didn’t get any snow until the end of the month,” Hawley said. “The temperatures certainly cut down on the amount of frozen precipitation we had, and that’s essentially why the road budgets weren’t used up.”
Hawley said the same thing occurred in January and in February, when temperatures were above normal and “when you’re talking rain or snow, it doesn’t take much of a change in temperature from getting snow to getting rain.”
So far in March, the temperature was about 5 degrees above normal, and one degree in either direction can make a big difference, Hawley said. While some of the past winter’s storms began with a bit of snow, storms soon turned to rain.
“It really helped the road crews from having to spend so much money on salt and plowing,” he said.
Hawley said last year at this time, Portland had a winter total of 91 inches of snow. The average is 57 inches. This year Portland had 48 inches of snow overall.
In Waterville this time last year, about 62 inches of snow had fallen. This year Waterville has had about 31 inches of snow stretched out over a period of four months. The normal snowfall for Waterville is about 64 inches.
Mark Turner, Waterville’s director of public works, said his crews responded to 21 winter plowing or sand situations, compared to 36 last winter. He said only about 60 percent of his winter roads budget — general operations and supplies — has been spent.
“We still have a sizable inventory of sand left over. Our salt budget also is about 60 percent spent,” Turner said Friday. “We’ve saved 40 to 50 percent on many major winter-related categories, I’d say. Forty percent I’d say would be the benchmark to use — overtime and all the major categories associated with winter operations.”
In Augusta, Lesley Jones, public works director, said the city annually budgets $900,000 a year for winter road maintenance and so far this year has spent about $600,000.
She projects that once the cold weather ends, the city will have saved about $100,000 overall compared to what was budgeted.
That compares favorably to last year’s brutal winter, in which the city was over budget by about $500,000 for winter road maintenance.
“We’ve spent a little less. We’ve saved some overtime,” Jones said, estimating public works would save $25,000 to $30,000 in the overtime budget. “We’ve had quite a bit of ice and sleet this winter, which is hard on the salt budget, so the salt budget is close to being spent.”
She noted that while cold weather is winding down, there is still time to get one or two more storms.
Jones said the city budgeted $215,000 for sand, salt and liquid magnesium chloride to put on roads over the winter, and it has spent nearly that much.
Jones said what will be done with the saved money depends on how the public works budget shapes up overall. She said the money, if unspent, probably would go into the city’s surplus account. She said that could help replenish that account, which was used for the $500,000 spent over budget last year in dealing with massive snowfall and frigid temperature.
In Farmington, Public Works Director Phil Hutchins said that town has saved money on stockpiled sand and salt for the winter roads and in general on hours spent on snow removal.
He said typically the Farmington Public Works Department stockpiles 5,500 cubic yards of winter sand, and this year it has used only about 2,800 cubic yards of sand.
“We’ve only used probably right around 55 percent of our total expenditure of overtime in this budget,” Hutchins said. “Looking back on the man hours, I would say 40 percent less than what we did last year.”
The picture was a little different up in the unorganized territory of Somerset County, roughly from Rockwood Strip down to Pleasant Ridge, where 27 or 28 winter road responses were recorded this winter, said Phil Curtis, road consultant for Somerset County. He said the weather in the northern part of the county — about 65 miles of rural roads — can change dramatically and differs widely from weather in Waterville or Skowhegan areas.
Curtis said his contracted crews have used 85 percent to 90 percent of the sand and salt stockpiles this winter, compared to half that amount farther south.
“This winter has been more normal than the last two winters — if there’s a definition for normal winter,” he said by phone Friday. “When we get up into Dead River and Highland Plantation, where the elevation gets higher, we’ll have snow up there where we’re having rain in the Skowhegan area.
“We’ll see a significant difference. The winds blow a little harder. The temperature drops a little further.”
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
Twitter:@Doug_Harlow
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