When the snow starts falling, many communities send out the big trucks to dump loads of salts on roads. Many homeowners will also add salts to sidewalks to keep people safer from slip hazards. In the U.S., we use about 15 to 32 million metric tons of road salts per year. Road salts were first […]
This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives. As cold weather settles in across North America, some communities have already started up their snowplows, while others keep watchful eyes on the forecast. Snow and ice can wreck travel plans, but they also play important ecological roles. And frozen water can take amazing […]
The lakefront city of Erie, Pa. has been inundated by several feet of snow this week, “shattering many records,” the National Weather Service said. The historic storm—a whopping 62.9 inches since Dec. 23, with more flakes to come—prompted the city’s police department to declare a “Snow Emergency” due to dangerous and impassable roads. While climate […]
New research shows that the Alaska Range receives an average of 18 feet of snow per year—that’s more than double the average of eight feet per year from 1600-1840. The likely culprit, according to researchers from Dartmouth College, the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire, is none other than climate change. “We […]
Chicago—a city well known for its windy and snowy winters—is experiencing some unusually warm weather. For the first time in 146 years, there was no documented snow on the ground in January and February, according to the local National Weather Service. Chicago's about to do something its never done in 146 years of record keeping: […]
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