This winter is expected to be a little warmer than usual in Northern Virginia. But when inclement weather does hit, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) will have thousands of trucks — with access to 120,000 tons of salt, 250,000 gallons of brine, and 25,000 tons of sand — ready to go.
During VDOT’s annual winter weather briefing for local government officials and the media on Nov. 17, staffers with the transportation agency and the National Weather Service (NWS) explained how they’re preparing — and what Northern Virginia residents can expect to see on the roads — over the coming months.
With precipitation expected to stay at “about normal levels” and temperatures remaining mild in the mid-Atlantic, the NWS anticipates “more mixed precipitation storms, more freezing rain, more snow changing to rain,” said Chris Strong, an NWS forecaster.
Even though a big coastal snowstorm remains unlikely, Strong added, a combination of three factors can still create a “recipe for a traffic disaster”: 1 inch or less of snow, during urban rush hour, with sub-freezing road temperatures.
When this happens, NWS will often issue a “winter hazard commuting statement,” Strong said.
If there is enough time before the weather event and temperatures are above 20 degrees, the roads will be pre-treated with salt brine, which is a mixture of 77% water and 23% salt, VDOT staff said.
“It can’t be too, too cold because even pre-treatment can get slick,” noted Lauren Mollerup, a Northern Virginia district maintenance engineer for VDOT.
While VDOT will pre-treat interstates, primaries, and high-volume secondary roads, residents should not expect it in their neighborhoods, she said.
“We get this question a lot,” said Mollerup. “We don’t do neighborhood streets … because it helps us buy us more time on these bigger roadway systems.”
Roads will be treated with salt until the snow accumulates to two inches; at that point, plows will begin to scrape the roads.
Commuters can track that progress via VDOT’s newly upgraded plow tracking website. Residents can now search by an address to see when the neighborhood fleet is activated. Six hours’ worth of data will be publicly available, with footage from traffic cameras.
VDOT’s policy is to clear roads until they’re deemed “passable,” meaning there’s a wide-enough path to allow emergency vehicles, but many Fairfax County leaders and residents, particularly in the McLean area, took issue with the department’s work after last winter’s biggest snowstorm, which closed schools for four days due to concerns about the safety of road conditions.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors criticized VDOT officials for what they saw as a lack of urgency in responding to complaints, though they allowed that workers did “a wonderful job” handling a similar storm in February.
“Our focus when it’s snowing is the main line,” Mollerup said at last week’s briefing. “… We are still in an active event, so I would ask that everybody be a little patient and let us get through the event. Our main goal is to make sure that folks can get [around] safely, especially medical professionals.”
Other winter weather resources
- See the range of possible snow and rain accumulations: weather.gov/lwx/wintermaps
- Find out if VDOT maintains your road: bit.ly/novastreets
- Track plows in your neighborhood: plows.vdot.virginia.gov
- Report issues to VDOT: my.vdot.virginia.gov
