The seemingly endless snow dumped in the Innisfail area since early November is now a record accumulation, according to Environment Canada.
And the town is facing pressure with its budget for outside help to clear the streets.
ìWe don't have full accounting yet but we do expect our budgeting to be under pressure there,î said Craig Teal, the town's director of planning and operational services.
He said the town budgeted $40,000 in 2013 to hire outside resources to remove snow from the streets and other public areas but conceded the budgeted monies could now be close to being used up.
ìWe are pretty darn close,î said Teal, adding year-end budget figures will be calculated near the end of the month. ìThat will be the first time we will have concrete numbers to go over and say how bad it was but I do expect it to be putting some pressure on our budget.î
Since early November, Innisfail and the region have been pounded with several snowstorms. Total snow accumulations in the months of November and December for Innisfail and the surrounding area are 112.1 centimetres, said Dave Phillips, Environment Canada senior climatologist. He said the normal amount of snow for those months is about 48 cm.
ìThere has never been a snowier beginning to winter than what you've got going now. It is a record,î said Phillips, adding that normal snowfall for the entire winter season in the area is 116 cm.
ìTypically 40 per cent of the annual snowfall would have happened by now while 60 per cent is from Jan. 1 to when it stops later in the year, usually in May but sometimes even in June,î said Phillips.
Weather statistics for Innisfail are measured at the Red Deer Airport. Records for snow accumulation data for the area only go back to 1938, said Phillips, adding the previous record for the same time period was in 1975 when 93 cm of snow fell. He said the lowest recorded snowfall accumulation during the time frame of between September and December was 10.6 cm in 1953.
The latest major storm that hit the town and area on Dec. 27 caused major havoc on town streets and area highways, as well as adding extra pressure to staff at the Red Deer Airport.
ìIt is fair to say they (public works) have had a very busy December despite the holiday season. They were working right through,î said Teal.
RJ Steenstra, chief executive officer for Red Deer Regional Airport Authority, said it has been at least a dozen years since officials at the airport have seen winter weather as severe as what is happening this season.
ìThe snow keeps on falling, and we keep removing it,î said Steenstra.
He said the challenge to the operational team has been to keep the runways and taxi lane clear as quickly as possible, and the team at the airport has been able to do so.
ìWe have not experienced delays from our end with regards to air traffic, but we cannot avoid the ripple effect from delays in Calgary or Edmonton,î said Steenstra.
Police, meanwhile, were busy on local streets and area highways. Innisfail RCMP Const. Chris Lavery said local police responded to 15 collisions from Dec. 26 to Jan. 2. He added none of the accidents resulted in serious injuries.
RCMP Const. Steve Molnar, collision analyst with the QEII Integrated Traffic Unit, said the late December snowstorm caused ìdozens, certainly more than 40î accidents on the QEII from Highway 11A to Didsbury in conditions that were underscored with icy road conditions and zero visibility.
ìIn my experience, and I have been in the Red Deer area for six years now, this has been the worst winter in terms of driving conditions,î said Molnar. ìThere has definitely been a lot of days, the blizzard on Friday (Dec. 27), the one we had a few weeks ago, where visibility is zero. You can't even see the road. I haven't seen conditions like that ever.î
Molnar said on Dec. 29 at around 11:15 a.m. there was a series of collisions ìaround Innisfailî on the QEII at the Cottonwood Road overpass that resulted in an 84-year-old male being transported to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. As a result of that collision, there was a southbound three-vehicle crash that resulted in one female passenger being transported to hospital at the same time. He said the area was quickly cleaned up but the highway traffic was diverted for 40 minutes.
Molnar said the main issue was people driving too fast.
ìThe visibility is improved but there is still a lot of ice on the roads but I noticed speeds are back up to summertime speeds,î he said. ìPeople are going 110, 120 and 130 on the highways. They are certainly not leaving sufficient room between them and the vehicle in front of them and that is what is causing these collisions.î
What is even more disturbing, added Molnar, is that police are also beginning to see road rage incidents due to congestion.
ìSome people are being impatient, passing on the shoulder and tailgating and getting into arguments, gesturing each other,î he said, adding there has not yet been any serious incidents of road rage. ìI would certainly encourage people to be patient because that is certainly not going to speed up the flow of traffic.î
In the meantime, Environment Canada says there is a bit of hope that there might be some relief to this season's record-breaking winter weather.
Phillips said the agency's weather models are forecasting milder than normal conditions for February and March.
ìMy sense is that the winter won't be as long as last year but you don't get winter in allotments. You don't say we got all our nasty weather at the beginning so we are not going to have anything at the end. No, nature doesn't work that way,î said Phillips. ìMy sense is that we still have a ways to go, but from a snowfall point of view you are almost at what would be a normal year when you typically have 60 per cent of the snow days yet to arrive.
ìOne hopes you don't get much more but it looks like it will go down as a snow year,î said Phillips.
