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Endless winter blasts through almost all of Calgary's snow removal budget for 2018

CBC News | Posted: April 17, 2018 6:44 PM | Last Updated: April 17, 2018

City has spent more than $32M of this year's $38.8M allocation that has to last through December

Image | Snow Calgary

Caption: Calgarians brave the snow along a river pathway in March. (Terri Trembath/CBC)

The city is quickly plowing through its snow removal budget for 2018 as Calgary continues to suffer through The Winter. That. Never. Ends.
Prior to Monday's storm that blanketed Calgary yet again, the city had already spent $32 million of this year's allotment of $38.8 million, according to Calgary Roads spokesman Chris McGeachy.
Although this snow season is (hopefully) nearly over, the budget has to cover any snowfall removal through to the end of 2018.
"This year's been a challenging year, just because we haven't had the chinooks, the melt," McGeachy said.
"The snow has stuck around a lot longer so it's been challenging for us. Right now we're still operating within our budget and we hope it's a warm, dry rest of the year."
The snow and ice removal budget covers Jan. 1 through Dec. 31.

Above average snowfall

The data from Environment Canada confirms it has been a brutal winter in Calgary.
With April just over halfway done, Calgary has had 24.6 centimetres of snow. The 30-year average for April is 18.8 cm.
March had almost twice the normal snowfall — 41.9 cm compared with the 22.7-centimetre cm.
February was even more out of whack. Calgary got 43.3 cm of snow, while 14.5 cm would have been normal.
January's total this year of 11 cm was closer to the average 15.3 cm for that month.
McGeachy says there is a $12.5-million reserve fund the city can dip into if necessary.
That will be discussed once Calgary is well past the spring snow period — if that ever happens.

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