Grey Skies, Mushy Roads

From the Black Hawk County Engineers Office Face Book page.

All last week the temperatures hovered between 34° and 38°F with little variance day or night. Add in about 36 hours of rain and the nearly 30" of snow on the ground began to melt at a very rapid rate.

Most curiously, the ground, which wasn't frozen prior to these snows, remained unfrozen, so the snow is essentially sinking into the ground. Usually the scene would be that of a ton of run-off, but that happens only if the moisture cannot be absorbed into the ground. 

This week is forecast to be a little warmer, but fog continues to be an issue and clouds are not going 100% away. Hopefully we get some Sun. It's actually all good since we've had a bad drought for two years. But, it sucks for the gravel roads, which have turned into a mushy, dirty mess. 

In fact, as you can see from my snip from the Black Hawk County Engineers Office a& Secondary Roads Facebook page, heavy traffic is being discouraged at this time. I expect this situation to continue throughout this week until most of the snow is gone and only drifts remain. 

This also will - most likely - probably mean that the roads will be pretty torn up to start the gravel riding season. This hasn't happened for several years. I look for lots of rutting and mud coming through the base of the roads in several places. We won't likely have frost boils, but maybe.... Maybe a few. I don't see that being a big deal this Spring.

Scenes like this from 2017 are expected again this Spring.

Of course, we have no idea if Spring will be wet or dry or what. This will also factor into what we see this year to start out with on the gravel roads. But as I said, rutting and some forms of damage are quite likely no matter what. 

That'll be a big change over the last three or four years. Those were the years where we started out with dry roads and they only got dustier with a ton of fresh gravel being applied. That only served to accumulate gravel. That gravel never got pushed into the base of the roadway to form those familiar "three-track" smoother lines we gravel riders crave around here.That made riding harder and less fun. 

We'll see how it goes, but I don't see myself getting out until this weather gets either warmer, Sunnier, or windier. Maybe it'll take all three things to straighten up the gravel roads.