Favorite Wintertime Cities

[Yuri]

Yesterday, I came across this 2 hour HQ footage of snow removal in Montreal: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bQujcjTZEG8

I was shocked by this huge holes where they dump the snow. Never imagine that such infrastructure existed nor ever thought about on how challenging it was to keep the city working. I imagine there are tens of thousands of people working on it. Amazing video.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I was shocked by this huge holes where they dump the snow. Never imagine that such infrastructure existed.

that "huge hole" looks like an old, likely abandoned, quarry.

it probably wasn't dug for the purpose of dumping snow, rather, once the quarry stone was exhausted, it simply became a very convenient place to put excess snow.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that "huge hole" looks like an old, likely abandoned, quarry.

it probably wasn't dug for the purpose of dumping snow, rather, once the quarry stone was exhausted, it simply became a very convenient place to put excess snow.

That's usually what these snow dumps are. There is one near my place. Some of them are huge though, and there is often some snow left there well after the weather has started to get warm.

There are even stories of some snow remaining for the entire summer (of 25-30C temperatures every day) and still being there when the following winter season started.

These may be urban legends but the cities referenced IIRC were Winnipeg and Minneapolis.

[Centropolis]

theres a vague aesthetic appreciation of a place like quebec city, all stone with a blanket of lights, snow and red wine.

in practice i like my wintertime cities to be deep blue skied, sunny, and 60 F. even in my late 30s i have various muscular-skeletal damages that don’t respond well to northern fronts, endless overcast and slush.

i’ll likely never live north of the latitude of the mason dixon again excepting the distant west. new mexico for a retirement spot perhaps.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

As I recall, there was an Ottawan forumer who posted weather stats for that city showing that every month's average temperature has risen over the past decade, except for April, which has actually become colder.

Despite the winter "lag", summer isn't starting any later either. We're basically just seeing a compression of the spring season into a few short weeks.

Some years, I have had the quite special experience of having not even a month elapsing between the moment the last residual snow melts (the season's snow, not just a freak April snowfall) and the first time we swim in our backyard pool in May.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Some years, I have had the quite special experience of having not even a month elapsing between the moment the last residual snow melts (the season's snow, not just a freak April snowfall) and the first time we swim in our backyard pool in May.

i had back surgery a few years ago in st louis - when i went in under the knife in april there was a thin blanket of snow on the ground - two weeks later it was in the 90s F and i had the AC on. i had about a week that i had the windows open that year...

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that "huge hole" looks like an old, likely abandoned, quarry.

it probably wasn't dug for the purpose of dumping snow, rather, once the quarry stone was exhausted, it simply became a very convenient place to put excess snow.

While watching the video, it's nice to see how urban and vibrant Montreal is, despite all the extreme weather. It's a shame that US metro areas that was once more populated than it, such Cleveland and St. Louis, and much bigger (Detroit) was decamped.

Originally Posted by Acajack

That's usually what these snow dumps are. There is one near my place. Some of them are huge though, and there is often some snow left there well after the weather has started to get warm.

There are even stories of some snow remaining for the entire summer (of 25-30C temperatures every day) and still being there when the following winter season started.

These may be urban legends but the cities referenced IIRC were Winnipeg and Minneapolis.

While seeing those mountains of snow, I thought about that too. It might take ages for the snow on the core of it to melt away.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

While seeing those mountains of snow, I thought about that too. It might take ages for the snow on the core of it to melt away.

Snow actually melts pretty fast when it's sunny and warm.

Depending on how much snow was accumulated during the winter and how warm the spring is, the snow generally disappears completely from even the biggest dumps sometime between late April and the first week of June. At least that's what I've heard and read.

[muppet]

St Petersburg

• Video Link

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Yesterday, I came across this 2 hour HQ footage of snow removal in Montreal: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bQujcjTZEG8

I was shocked by this huge holes where they dump the snow. Never imagine that such infrastructure existed nor ever thought about on how challenging it was to keep the city working. I imagine there are tens of thousands of people working on it. Amazing video.

great video. There is some hometown pride in Montreal's incredible snow removal operations. Montreal apparently has the largest snow removal budget in the world.

140 000 tonnes of salt and abbrasives (they use sand as well). 180 trucks for roads, 190 for sidewalks to distribute said salt.

1,000 vehicles for plowing streets and sidewalks (sidewalk tractors, graders, snowplows and front-end loaders).

If you add salt truck, plows, graders, removal trucks, etc.. you get over 2200 vehicles. 300 000 truckloads of snow removal per winter. (12 million cubic meters of snow removed - 225 cm of snow per year)

4,100 km of sidewalks and 6,550 km of roads

3000 employees, $168 million budget per winter. (3% of city budget)

[mrnyc]

^ i would imagine so. thats about $140M and i think ny rivals that on the high end. of course snow removal varies widely year to year here and the budget is rarely anywhere near the high end. i dont think ny has too many dedicated snow removal trucks. they use sanitation. also they pay dsny ot and hire temps, so that drives costs up in the rare big snow events.

[MolsonExport]

NYC often "borrows" the Montreal fleet, if available. I've seen the convoys down the I-87

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by memph

I feel like Quebec City, Montreal and Ottawa all embrace winter more than Southwestern Ontario/GTA.

Very true. Southwestern Ontario/GTA are firmly in the 'what's wrong with wearing running shoes all winter' mindset and then wondering why their shoes last 1 or 2 seasons at best. Winter deniers.

[TheShekelcounter]

I totally embrace cold weather beautiful cities, that's why I live on the beach.