What's in store for this Winter?

By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Government agencies that spent small fortunes last winter on salt, snow removal and employee overtime because of the heavy snowfall probably don't have to worry about a similar situation this winter.
At least according to long-range forecasts.
"It's going to be a pretty normal winter," said Bill Romine, meteorologist in charge at Weather Central Inc., of the Mahoning and Shenango valleys. Weather Central, a forecasting agency based in Madison, Wis., provides information for The Vindicator's daily weather page.
"You're going to get a bit of snow this winter, but it won't be too bad. Temperatures will be normal and precipitation will be normal as well."
Of course, it is just a forecast and not a guarantee, Romine said.
Typical snowfall in this area is about 60 inches during the winter. The winter of 2002-03, with about 90 inches of snow, was one of the snowiest in recent years.
Almanac's prediction
The Old Farmer's Almanac says precipitation and snowfall for the winter will be near or slightly below normal with the heaviest snowfalls occurring early and late in the season; a few days before Thanksgiving and in early April.
The heavy snowfall last winter caused major headaches for communities that ran out of salt and/or were financially strapped because of the large amount of unanticipated overtime paid to its road department employees for snow removal.
Learning a lesson from last winter, several communities and counties are anticipating the worst this year, and are buying extra road salt.
Mahoning County didn't run out of salt last year, but it did have to conserve it for a while -- salting only curves, hills and intersections of county roads from mid-February on. For this winter, the county has almost doubled its order of road salt to avoid a similar problem.
But others are hoping there isn't a repeat of last winter.
In Warren, the city has budgeted for 3,500 tons of salt even though it went through 4,000 tons last year. Salem officials are hoping the snow won't be too heavy in November and December because it has no more money budgeted for the purchase of road salt through the end of the year.
Stockpiling salt
The Ohio Department of Transportation District 4 in Ravenna, which handles more than 4,000 miles of roads in six counties including Mahoning and Trumbull, buys salt during nonwinter months to stockpile it for when it is needed, said Jennifer Richmond, the district's spokeswoman.
"We always prepare for the worst," she said. "We didn't have a problem last winter because we have provisions in our budget for years like that. You can't predict what Mother Nature is going to do."
The Mercer County Maintenance Office of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is implementing a couple of changes to make it more responsive to bad weather conditions, said spokesman Bill Marceau.
The office will start a 24/5 dispatch system Dec. 1, or earlier if snow comes earlier, he said.
"That means the office will have a dispatcher on duty 24 hours a day Monday through Friday and on weekends as weather conditions dictate," Marceau said.
Previously, dispatching was handled out of a regional office in Franklin and left gaps in coverage, he said.
Adding responsibilities
The Mercer office will also pick up snow removal responsibilities for a 5-mile section of Interstate 79 in northern Lawrence County at the request of state police because it is able to get there faster than Lawrence County crews, he said.
The office has also ordered more salt than it normally has on hand at this time of the year, Marceau said, noting deliveries began last week.
Lawrence County PennDOT workers are gearing up trucks, filling material bins and getting their snow routes at the maintenance office of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in Lawrence County, said Joe Grippo, assistant county maintenance manager.
The department has 22 trucks that cover 698 snow lane miles. He said there are no budget concerns because PennDOT works on a fiscal budget that runs from July to June each year.
Contributors: Harold Gwin, Sharon Bureau; Laure Cioffi, New Castle Bureau.