MILWAUKEE — While we may be in meteorological spring on the calendar, Southeast Wisconsin is still knee-deep in winter weather.
The springlike temperatures we saw just days ago are now a thing of the past as Milwaukee enters a new winter wonderland.
The City of Milwaukee DPW says they have had crews out all night trying to pave the roads as quickly as possible.
“We're always ready for this type of operation. Traditionally, the last few years we had some really late winter weather, we even had, I think some like April snowstorms that came through. So, it's not as if a certain calendar date, we fold up shop and you know, stop being prepared,” said Brian DeNeve, City of Milwaukee Dept. of Public Works spokesperson.
With more than 100 salt trucks out on the roads, Public Works crews spent the overnight hours laying down brine on the main streets, trying to stop the snow from sticking before the rush hour commute.
DeNeve says there’s one reason why today’s snow is causing less headaches compared to the latest storm systems we’ve seen, and it all comes down to conditions.
“What happened most recently with the storm prior to this was heavy, heavy blitz of ice, which caused freezing conditions on the road. So, we had to obviously address that first and foremost,” said DeNeve.
With more snow possible Thursday night, DPW teams are prepared to tackle it head-on.
“I don't want to venture to say that this is less hazardous. But you know, those were severe conditions that essentially shut down the city that we didn't have to contend with this time," said DeNeve.
For local hardware stores, this recent round of winter weather is more than welcome, as they try to sell off their last rounds of snow staples.
“We actually have a lot of salt and shovels left because we haven't had a lot of snow this winter. So hopefully, we'll sell through some of it today. Try to get rid of all the extra stocks so we don't have to store the shovels over the summer,” said Ken Converse, Bliffert Lumber and Hardware.
