WEST MICHIGAN — The big thaw continues…so what better time than the present to chop and scrape that ice of your sidewalk, driveway, and any place else it can be a hazard.
The attached photo was taken on my driveway Sunday afternoon…unbelievable how the ice can get that thick (between 1″ to 2″) in just one week. We made sure to scrape everything to bare pavement before the Arctic blast last week, but as temps fell in to the single digits above/below zero, it’s quite impossible to get back to where you started. Obviously, in temperatures that cold salt has little to no melting power.
With temps around 40 the last two days and a little sunshine to boot, like many, I too was able to get out the gardening spade and go to work chopping. The warmer temperatures seems as if it may have slightly loosened the ice to the cement, but make no mistake about it…it’s pure manual labor! It seems to work best with the spade if you hold it almost parallel to the driveway and slide it along the surface. Huge chunks were breaking loose!
It becomes even more important to get the ice off the driveway when you live on a hill and more snow and cold will soon be coming in. That said, temps will still be above freezing on Monday but we may see some light rain or snow showers along/behind a cold front that will slip through the state. If you’ve been waiting patiently to break up the ice on the driveway, this will be one of the last good days before more accumulating snow arrives Tuesday morning.
The temperature outlook this week has readings getting colder again, but not even close to where we were last week with the Arctic blast. You can get the complete forecast as well as temperatures, wind chills, satellite, radar, and other maps at www.fox17online.com/weather.
