Worcester Has Spent $4.7 Million in Snow Removal this Winter

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Monday, February 16, 2015

Patrick Sargent, GoLocal Worcester Contributor

The city of Worcester has taken a beating with snow this winter. Worcester has seen more than 103 inches of snow and remains as the Snowiest City in America by only a few inches over Buffalo, New York. According to Goldensnowglobe.com, the average yearly snowfall to date for Worcester is 42.3 inches of snow. 

This winter ranks as the fifth snowiest on record. The most snow Worcester has seen came in 1992-1993 when it received 120.1 inches.

According to numbers from the City Manager Ed Augustus' office, the city has spent $4.7 million in snow removal so far. This number does not include this past weekend's snowstorm on Valentine's Day. 

As it stands, the city is over budget by $700,000 and could creep closer to $1 million once this weekend's snow removal efforts are tallied up by the city.

Paul Moosey, Worcester DPW Commissioner, said, "I know we have staff that has not had a day off in 25 days. MEMA is helping with snow removal. We are certainly able to remove snow from substantially more streets than we could do on our own."

Winter Storm Juno at the end of January cost the city $1.5 million in snow clean-up. Just three weeks later, the city has spent an additional $3.2 million to clean-up the nearly 50 inches of snow Worcester has seen in February.

On Sunday, the city of Worcester reported that all 348 snow plows were out all day clearing snow from major roads and intersections and residential streets. MEMA crews will continue to work on removing snow from high traffic areas by hauling snow to the Worcester Regional Airport.

Worcester's Snowfalls by the Numbers

Typically, Worcester only sees two or three days in February with 10 or more inches of snowfall on the ground. Due to several snowstorms, and bitter cold temperatures, Worcester has had 10 or more inches of snow on the ground all 16 days so far this month.

As GoLocal Worcester reported, this is the snowiest February on record. According to the US National Weather Service, the total snow so far this month is 47.8 inches. The previous record was 45.2 inches in both 1962 and 1996. 

Worcester Still At Top of Snow Mountain

Worcester is currently the Snowiest City in the U.S. based on data from GoldenSnowGlobe.com. 

"Worcester, Boston and all of the MA cities are impressing me by the way they are pretty much the bulls eye of all the storms coming through.  Worcester is almost always in the contest along with the New York cities like Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse and with Erie, Pa too.  I never count them out but because of the slow season they started out with I pretty much didn't think they would be in the running this season.  Wow was I wrong. What a difference three weeks and several snowstorms make," said Patrick DeCoursey, who runs the Golden Snow Globe site. 

According to DeCoursey, Lowell, MA has recently been added to the top ten list of snowiest cities and could possibly dethrone Worcester as the snowiest city by Monday. DeCoursey also says Boston is narrowing the gap consistently between them and Worcester.

The Top Ten Snowiest Cities in the United States:Normal Season at This Time (updated 2/15/15)

1.  Worcester, Mass  - 103 inches

2.  Buffalo, New York - 96.3 inches

3.  Boston, MA - 95.7 Inches 

4.  Erie, Pennsylvania - 91.3 inches

5.  Lowell, MA - 87.9 inches 

6.  Syracuse, New York - 85.9 inches

7. Rochester, New York - 75.6 inches

8. Grand Rapids, Michigan - 70.1 inches

9. South Bend, Indiana - 66.2 inches

10. Cleveland, Ohio - 54.0 inches

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Related Slideshow: Worcester’s Top Ten Highest Annual Snowfall Totals

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