City machinery trying to keep the streets open during a huge snowstorm. Soon to come to our neighborhoods ...

[pichaser]

A friend who drove a grader at night for a logging company asked if I wanted to tag along . When we got to the machine we had to snow chain six wheels in the cold mountain air . I need to find the photos .

[mroeder75]

You have this much snow already? What part of Quebec is this?

[lesmore49]

Nice pix. I've tried to get similar night snow clearing pix, but mine aren't as good as this one.

Here in Winterpeg we get lots of snowstorms but don't use snowblowers to clear streets, instead big front end loaders with buckets and graders with grading blades do the job.

I think the reason is because we get periods of -30 or colder and the snow gets pounded into thick, hard ice...and the only thing that can remove this concrete like ice are these machines. I'm not sure, but I think it is because our snowstorms come usually with milder temps, then bitter cold follows which freezes the snow very hard, along with traffic which compresses it seems to always follow quickly.

I believe southern Quebec gets more total snow overall, but temps don't get as bitterly cold on a regular basis as here. I could be wrong.

The city has/had one monumentally huge snowblower that was made in Quebec in the '50's (Sicard manufacture ?) that was brought out when we got a heavy spring snowstorm.

I've seen it only a few times and it has two large diesel engines, one for the tractor, one for the very large snowblower unit. Not sure if the city still has it, but it was known as Big Bertha. Very impressive machine.

I've seen videos of snow clearing in Montréal and it's a very impressive process with large snowblowers travelling alongside large dump trucks....funneling snow into truck boxes...reminds me of grain harvest methods.

[RICHARD L.]

Thanks for your kind words !

The picture here dates back to 2018, it was a "record" year but recently, every year is a record year (climate change, you know). Quebec City receives at least 10 feet of snow every winter, sometimes much more. We're still in autumn but snow begins to remain on the ground around mid-november. We usually have minus 30 degree temperatures for about a month in January-February. The City spends tens of millions $ for snow removal every winter.


Regards

[reh321]

City machinery trying to keep the streets open during a huge snowstorm. Soon to come to our neighborhoods ...

Last year, our first snowfall came on Halloween. Nothing predicted that soon here, but predictions are that much of the Winter will have snow like that to photograph.

[RICHARD L.]

What Detroit and Toronto get one day in winter, we get the same the next day. The Great Lakes influence our weather tremendously.

Regards

[ignath]

nice shot of working process!