Latest news with #WinterStormBlair
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
How does Indy's snow fleet compare to other cities? Here's what we found.
A woman couldn't take her mother to chemotherapy. A man missed three days of work. School buses slid as children stood nearby. The complaints piled up as quickly as snow during Winter Storm Blair in early January. The Indianapolis Department of Public Works deployed 70 plow drivers around the clock for nearly two weeks, logging more than 13,000 hours of overtime and dropping nearly a dozen tons of salt. It wasn't enough. Complaints continued to pour into the Mayor's Action Center — 784 of them — during January as snow hardened to ice on Indianapolis sidewalks and residential roads. An IndyStar investigation found that a constrained budget, stretched-thin snowplow fleet and past policy decisions combined to strand residents in their homes, leading members of the City-County Council to interrogate the public works department over a snow response that Councilor Jared Evans called the "worst that [he's] seen." One month after the public outcry, Mayor Joe Hogsett and City-County Council President Vop Osili took action to get the city through the rest of the winter. IndyStar examined data from six cities, including the number of plows owned, the maximum deployed at once, the miles a city is committed to plowing and the city's total road surface to get a better understanding of how other cities deploy their snow fleets. The analysis found that Indianapolis has significantly fewer snowplows per mile compared to its midwest neighbors. This result was found by dividing the distance of miles plowed by the maximum number of trucks on the road at once. When rounded to the nearest mile, that breaks down to: Chicago (38.4 inches average annual snowfall): 32 miles/truck + contractors Cincinnati, OH (23.3 inches average annual snowfall): 52 miles/truck Columbus, OH (22.4 inches average annual snowfall): 66 miles/truck Detroit, MI (45 inches average annual snowfall): 49 miles/truck + contractors Indianapolis (25.5 inches average annual snowfall): 100 miles/truck Louisville, KY (13.4 inches average annual snowfall): 45 miles/truck Nashville, TN (8.1 inches average annual snowfall): 75 miles/truck St. Louis, MO (18.9 inches average annual snowfall): 47 miles/truck Even cities with more snowplows took heated criticism over Winter Storm Blair. Columbus saw hundreds of complaints filed to its reporting system, and the response in St. Louis had residents so riled that snow removal became a "hot topic" on the mayor's campaign trail. Indianapolis' snowplow inventory is just one piece of a complicated system. Clues to how the city got to this point can be found in a December 2020 meeting of the Public Works Committee. At that meeting, then-director Dan Parker announced that the department was doing away with a rule that hired paid contractors on residential side streets to augment its fleet following 6 inches or more of snow. Instead, denser residential streets — "connectors" — would be added to the city's plowing routes. Administrators presented the change as a way for more local streets to be plowed faster and create more neighborhood accessibility. Contractors could be called in for residential side streets before the 6-inch threshold was met at the city's discretion. 'We eliminated the old 6-inch arbitrary rule, and we've added 300 additional centerline miles of residential streets,' Parker said on Dec. 10, 2020. In practice, however, the city hasn't called out contractors since February 2021, despite notable snow events in 2022 and 2024. And roads that might have previously been taken care of were left uncleared following two back-to-back January snowstorms. Interim DPW director Sam Beres defended the department's actions at a contentious Public Works Committee meeting on Jan. 16, 2025, saying that contractors could make streets more slippery by reducing streets' cover to a thin layer of ice. 'Now all of those neighborhoods are a sheet of ice anyway,' Councilor Brian Mowery shot back. More: 'The worst that I've seen:' City officials push DPW on unplowed residential roads To DPW's credit, more than 80% of the city's 8,400 miles are covered by snow routes. But narrow neighborhood streets weren't part of that plan, leaving residents struggling to get basic services like mail delivery and trash removal. In the absence of help from the city, people paid out of their own pockets for plowing so that they and their neighbors could receive in-home health care, buy groceries and get to work. On Feb. 13, the Public Works Committee was set to discuss a proposal from Councilor Jared Evans requiring contractors to clear streets following 4 inches of snow as a matter of policy. Two hours before the meeting began, Mayor Hogsett and Council President Osili announced a nearly identical strategy, but only for the remainder of this winter. Snow fell in Indianapolis days after the announcement, but it wasn't enough to trigger contractors. Discussion and voting of Evans' proposal were tabled until March. The news was a welcome change for Jack Stocks, a civil engineer who volunteers to arrange private plowing in his northeast Indianapolis neighborhood. "The city needs to make people feel safe, and people don't feel safe if their streets aren't cleared off," Stocks said. "It's clear that they responded to the concerns, which is good. That's what they're supposed to do." Even if the policy gets permanently adopted, Evans says it's a stopgap to a broader infrastructure issue. 'We're doing all of these projects, and we need more and more engineers and people,' Evans said. 'It's like, why do we keep contracting this out? Why don't you at some point just bring it in-house?' When do cities plow residential roads?Indianapolis: The city doesn't salt or plow residential roads unless the city calls in private contractors, which is done on a case-by-case basis. There aren't specific guidelines about how those case-by-case decisions are made, but Department of Public Works spokesperson Kyle Bloyd said the city considers how fast snow falls, how soon it will melt, and whether more snow is OH: Residential streets are plowed by "trained auxiliary city staff" after four or more inches of snow fall, according to the city's snow control plan. These roads aren't salted, citing environmental concerns, and they're plowed last after major thoroughfares and their OH: Cincinnati refers to its smallest streets as "pickup routes" because they can only be plowed by pickup trucks. They're prioritized last, behind primary thoroughfares and connectors (known in Cincinnati as "residential routes"). The city bans street parking during a snow emergency, which helps plows navigate down narrow local MI: Private contractors are deployed to residential streets if the Motor City sees more than six inches of snow. The city can ban parking to help plows move through narrow KY: Neighborhood streets aren't plowed, but on Jan. 16, Mayor Craig Greenberg announced crew members would salt 70 neighborhood streets surrounding city schools. The city prioritizes major thoroughfares, connector roads and roads near major employers and hospitals, according to its Louis, MO: Residential streets are not plowed according to a map provided by the TN: Some residential roads are not Residential roads are plowed after major streets are cleared. Each plow maintains between 14 and 17 miles of side streets, a city representative said. 'If folks want to know why [contractors are] not called out all the time, every time they're called out, it does cost us quite a bit of money,' then-director Dan Parker told the Public Works Committee after the city spent $600,000 during a February 2021 snow fight. For the 2024 fiscal year, Indianapolis allocated $62.6 million to the Department of Public Works for its operations budget, which covers snow removal. The money also covers the city's never-ending fight against potholes, a scourge compounded by the state's road funding formula, which doles out maintenance money based only on road length, not traffic volume or number of lanes. That means a rural road traveled a few times a day gets just as much state maintenance money as a heavily trafficked Indianapolis thoroughfare. More on the public works funding gap: Indianapolis should spend 5 times what it currently does on infrastructure, study says The cost of maintaining a staggering 8,400 miles of road depletes Indianapolis' ability to pay for other public goods – including snow removal. Councilor Evans told IndyStar the city's administration should calculate how much contractors cost and put that money aside each winter in case of an emergency. 'We're having a snow event like this every six [expletive] years,' Evans said after the snow had melted. The city needs to adopt a policy with "a little bit of common sense to it," he continued. After the February 2021 snowstorm, DPW asked to set aside $460,000 to pay for snow removal contractors the following year. They haven't been called out since, and that money was instead used to hire contractors for some of the city's many other infrastructure needs, according to the department. During an August 2024 budget hearing, then-DPW director Brandon Herget said some changes to next year's operations budget would reflect patterns based on previous years' spending. 'This is a 'live within our means' budget. That does mean that hard choices have to be made,' Herget said. More: Indy council passes budget despite 'no' votes over police, roads concerns The same residential streets that go unplowed by the city have also been passed over for critical repairs for years. Prospects of Marion County getting any more road funding seem nil. The statehouse has not looked favorably upon increasing taxes, leaving Indianapolis only with the option to make do with its undersized budget or pass a tax referendum. Rep. Justin Moed, a Democrat representing Indianapolis, has authored bills looking to overhaul the state's road funding formula every year for the past five legislative sessions. This year's bill, HB 1278, stalled in committee. Without some form of lasting change, odds are high that Indianapolis will again risk what was described in January complaints — missed doctors' appointments, a vehicle crashed into a home and broken bones from slip-and-falls. On Feb. 10, Director Todd Wilson took the reins of the Department of Public Works. He wasn't available for an interview at the time of this article's publication. "I look forward to working with you all in the future and to find a best way for our city to move forward," Wilson, the department's third director in 5 years, told the Public Works Committee on Feb. 13. Ryan Murphy is the communities reporter for IndyStar. She can be reached at (317) 800-2956 or rhmurphy@ This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis has fewer snowplows per mile than other midwestern cities
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Indianapolis winter weather advisory: Timing of storm that will bring icy roads to commute
Light snow moving into northwest central Indiana this afternoon, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) Indianapolis. Parts of a winter weather storm are expected to hit the city early in the afternoon. There's a winter weather advisory in place for central Indiana from 1 p.m. Wednesday going into 4 a.m. Thursday where freezing rain, snow and sleet will be mixed. People in areas around and north of Delphi and Lafayette can expect up to 1-3 inches of snow with lower temperatures building ice to about one-tenth of an inch. Indianapolis isn't expected to see any solid snow or inches today and tomorrow, according to National Weather Service Indianapolis predictions released early Wednesday. "There will be no snow impacts," NWS Indianapolis meteorologist Alexander McGinnis told IndyStar. "Just freezing rain across Marion County with greater impacts of that rain across the northern of the county." While other parts of central Indiana are expecting snow accumulations between 1-3 inches, the city will have freezing rain Wednesday, going into Thursday. "After midnight there are a few expected flurries but nothing too big or major," McGinnis said. "We can't rule out a few snowflakes mixing in, but it's a matter of if it'll freeze on the surface with temperatures being as low as 32 degrees." Plan for slippery road conditions that could impact Wednesday evening and Thursday morning commutes. The city has seen 16.3 inches of snow during this winter season with the bulk of that coming from Winter Storm Blair which hit Jan. 5-6. The city recorded another 3.5 inches of snowfall the following weekend. Check road conditions, including road closures, crashes and live webcams using Indiana's online Trafficwise map at or visit our gridlock guide page for live traffic cams and more. INDOT's CARS Program provides information about road conditions, closures and width and weight restrictions. The website has a color-coded map of Indiana's highways and highlights hazardous road conditions and travel delays. The interactive map also shows road work warnings, closures, roadway restrictions and other information helpful to drivers. 🚨 Indiana Weather Alerts: Warnings, Watches and Advisories. ⚡ Indiana power outage map: How to check your status. 💻 Internet outages: How to track them. 🚫 What you should and shouldn't do when the power is out. 🐶 Your neighbor left their pet outside. Who you should call. Jade Jackson is a Public Safety Reporter for the Indianapolis Star. You can email her at and follow her on X, formally Twitter @IAMJADEJACKSON. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Winter weather advisory Indianapolis. What to expect Wednesday
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Winter weather advisories issued for northern, central Indiana ahead of Wednesday storm
A winter weather advisory has been issued ahead of a storm making its way into Indiana on Wednesday. Meteorologists predict a large swath of north and central Indiana will be impacted by the storm. In northern Indiana, the winter weather advisory extends from 1 p.m. Wednesday to 7 a.m. Thursday and Hoosiers can expect snow mixed with freezing rain and sleet with snow accumulations between 2-4 inches and ice up to one-tenth of an inch. Plan on slippery road conditions that could impact the Wednesday evening and Thursday morning commutes. The central Indiana advisory will be in effect from 1 p.m. Wednesday to 4 a.m. Thursday and includes Carroll, Warren, Tippecanoe, Clinton, Howard, Fountain, Montgomery, Boone, Tipton, Hamilton, Madison, Delaware, Randolph, Vermillion, Parke, Putnam, Hendricks, Marion, Hancock, Henry, Vigo and Clay counties. Mixed precipitation is expected and snow accumulations up to 3 inches and ice accumulations up to two-tenths of an inch are predicted in some areas, particularly around Lafayette, the advisory states. Roads, especially bridges and overpasses, will likely become slick and hazardous. Drivers should plan on slippery road conditions that could impact the Wednesday evening commute. The advisory also cautioned people to be careful on stairs, sidewalks and driveways and those surfaces could become slippery fall risks. Snow is predicted Wednesday on a path from central Arizona northward toward the Great Lakes, with some parts of northern Indiana facing the possibility of heavy snow. Sunday night will see temperatures drop into single digits, with a low of about 9 degrees. On Monday the high is expected to be near 23 degrees, but the sun will mostly be shining through the clearing clouds, the National Weather Service in Indianapolis predicted Tuesday morning. The city has seen 16.3 inches of snow during this winter season with the bulk of that coming from Winter Storm Blair which hit Jan. 5-6. The city recorded another 3.5 inches of snowfall the following weekend. Check road conditions, including road closures, crashes and live webcams using Indiana's online Trafficwise map at or visit our gridlock guide page for live traffic cams and more. INDOT's CARS Program provides information about road conditions, closures and width and weight restrictions. The website has a color-coded map of Indiana's highways and highlights hazardous road conditions and travel delays. The interactive map also shows road work warnings, closures, roadway restrictions and other information helpful to drivers. 🚨 Indiana Weather Alerts: Warnings, Watches and Advisories. ⚡ Indiana power outage map: How to check your status. 💻 Internet outages: How to track them. 🚫 What you should and shouldn't do when the power is out. 🐶 Your neighbor left their pet outside. Who you should call. IndyStar reporters Jade Jackson and John Tufts contributed to this article. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Winter weather advisories issued for northern, central Indiana
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Winter storm warnings issued for 11 states Tuesday. What Indiana can expect
Winter storms are moving across half of the country this week and are expected to bring freezing rain and snow to parts of Indiana. National Weather Service meteorologists have issued several winter weather warnings to over 11 states. Snow is predicted Wednesday on a path from central Arizona northward toward the Great Lakes, with some parts of northern Indiana facing the possibility of heavy snow. Indianapolis is in the path of mostly freezing rain, with southern parts of the state seeing mixed precipitation starting Tuesday. "This is typical Indiana winter weather," NWS Indianapolis meteorologist Jason Puma told IndyStar. "Stay weather aware because changes in the forecast can happen at any time, but these temperatures aren't far from what we're used to even with this big storm coming." A hazardous weather outlook is in effect for southern Indiana into Tuesday night, including Johnson, Monroe, Brown, Owen, Morgan, Rush, Sullivan, Greene, Bartholomew, Decatur, Knox, Daviess, Martin, Lawrence, Jackson, Jennings and Shelby counties. "Light snow will accumulate up to an inch on grassy or elevated surfaces near and south of a Bedford to Seymour to North Vernon line (Tuesday)," the advisory states. "Lighter amounts will be possible further north." Puma said there's a chance for snow if you're traveling south of Indianapolis around Seymour, Bedford and Bartholomew on Tuesday. A second round of winter weather is expected Wednesday through Monday with more precipitation and possible snow in the mix during the weekend, but exact details remain uncertain, the advisory notes. Puma said meteorologists will have a better idea of what to fully expect in the systems on Wednesday morning. "Tomorrow and tomorrow night we're going to start off with rain going into the afternoon," Puma said. "That'll change in the evening to freezing rain which will change into snow overnight. We'll have dry weather Thursday and Friday with a mix of rain and snow on Friday and Saturday before changing to all snow the rest of Saturday." Sunday night will see temperatures drop into single digits, with a low of about 9 degrees. On Monday the high is expected to be near 23 degrees, but the sun will mostly be shining through the clearing clouds, the National Weather Service in Indianapolis predicted Tuesday morning. "We're going to get much colder as we get closer to Sunday," Puma said. "The highs will be in the 20s for Sunday and Monday. Most of Monday we'll just see precipitation." The city has seen 16.3 inches of snow during this winter season with the bulk of that coming from Winter Storm Blair which hit Jan. 5-6. The city recorded another 3.5 inches of snowfall the following weekend. ☁️ Tuesday: The high will go back to 38 degrees. Expect cloudy skies. ☁️ Tuesday Night: The low is 28 degrees. Expect cloudy skies. 🌨️ Wednesday: The high will be 34 degrees. Expect the weather to be cloudy with rain developing later in the day. There's a 90% chance for rain. 🌨️ Wednesday Night: The low will be near 20 degrees. NWS Indianapolis will be watching for a potential winter storm. Expect cloudy skies with light freezing rain in the evening. 🌤️ Thursday: The high will be 24 degrees. Expect cloudy skies early that will become partly cloudy later in the day. 🌑 Thursday Night: The low will be around 10 degrees. Expect clear to partly cloudy skies. ❤️⛅ Friday, Valentine's Day: The high will be 32 degrees. Expect a mix of clouds and sun in the morning followed by cloudy skies during the afternoon. ❤️🌧️ Friday Night, Valentine's Day: The low will be 28 degrees. Expect cloudy skies with occasional rain after midnight. There's a 70% chance of rain. 🌧️ Saturday: The high will be 42 degrees. Expect rainfall nearing a quarter of an inch. There's an 80% chance of rain. 🌨️ Saturday Night: The low will be 22 degrees. Expect rain and snow in the evening transitioning to snow showers late. There's a 70% chance of snow and you can expect about one inch of it. Freezing rain advisory: If a region will receive less than one-quarter of an inch of ice. Freezing rain warning: if a region will receive a quarter of an inch or more of ice. NWS will place a winter weather advisory when the weather is wintry but does not showcase any other severe weather elements. For example, if the NWS expects light amounts of precipitation or snow that could cause slick driving conditions. A winter weather watch will be alert if the NWS determines that conditions could indicate a winter storm is expected to hit a region. Severe weather conditions that meteorologists might highlight are heavy snow, sleet or freezing rain, which could cause significant impacts to travel. The NWS will alert a winter storm warning if meteorologists believe weather conditions will be significantly severe and expect hazardous conditions to hit an area. In the case of ice storms, the NWS will alert an ice storm warning if meteorologists expect ice accumulation of 1/4 inch or more on all surfaces. The NWS notes that these criteria are just one component when determining if a regional NWS station should issue watches, warnings and advisories. The NWS also looks at the timing, impacts and duration of an event in addition to criteria for making its decision. Jade Jackson is a Public Safety Reporter for the Indianapolis Star. You can email her at and follow her on X, formally Twitter @IAMJADEJACKSON. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Hoosiers are in for another winter storm as 11 states under warnings
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
February Temperature Outlook Trends Warmer In South, East, But There's A Catch
February's temperature forecast looks much different than January's persistent cold, but there's a late month wild card that could change that, according to an updated outlook released Friday by The Weather Company and Atmospheric G2. How February looks: For the month as a whole, most of the East and South are expected to be warmer than average, particularly from the mid-Atlantic and Southeast to coastal and southern Texas. However, a colder February is expected in the Northwest, Northern Rockies and Northern Plains. Since the map is an overall snapshot for all 28 days in the month, it masks some notable week-to-week temperature swings, which we'll discuss later. How the month's temperatures might evolve: February should start out generally colder from the Northwest to the Northern Plains, and occasionally into the Great Lakes and Northeast as some cold air in western Canada sweeps across the northern tier. Meanwhile, the southern tier of the country should be warmer than usual for this time of year. However, there's a pattern change that could happen around mid-month, according to Todd Crawford, Vice President of Meteorology at Atmospheric G2. "Heading into the back half of February, this represents a low-probability colder risk," said Crawford, referring to this potential pattern change's impact on temperatures in the East and South. How the pattern change could make it colder later in February: Patterns of the jet stream, including sharp southward plunges and domes of high pressure, help steer storm systems that either deliver or deflect cold air. As of the time this article was published, computer forecast models suggested a dome of high pressure known as a Greenland block could form by mid-month. When that happens, the jet stream is forced to take a southward nosedive over the eastern U.S., delivering more persistent cold there. At the same time a positive phase of the Pacific-North American pattern could move another dome of high pressure near or just off the West Coast. If that pattern change happens, it could shift the country to a warm West - cold East and South scenario for late February. So, you may want to enjoy your February thaw early in the month, while you can. Cold January: This February forecast looks quite a bit different than January, as the map below of January temperature anomalies (through the 27th) shows. According to AG2's Todd Crawford, it was America's coldest January since 2014, that's the January when the "polar vortex" first entered into the pop culture lexicon. The month featured four major winter storms in under three weeks, beginning with Winter Storm Blair and punctuated by the historic Gulf Coast Winter Storm Enzo.
