Snow is in the forecast later this week and crews have begun treating roadways. Here’s the types of equipment Texas crews use during winter weather.
DALLAS — A storm could bring widespread snow — with accumulation from one inch to four inches — to North Texas this week. So how many snowplows does Texas have and what’s the most common method of treating roads for winter weather in Texas?
Texas has a fleet of about 700 snowplows that are used to remove snow and ice during winter events, according to 2022 data from the Texas Department of Transportation. A Texas Department of Public Transportation Dallas district spokesperson said the district, which encompasses seven counties, has more than 100 pieces of equipment — everything from snowplows to dump trucks to maintainers — that are used for scraping snow and ice during winter weather events.
In North Texas, the city of Lewisville confirmed it has seven snowplows.
Far more common and familiar in Texas than the use of snowplows, though, is pretreating roadways with brine, which is a salt and water mixture, and sand to prevent snow and ice from sticking to the roads before precipitation falls. That process has already begun.
The city of Fort Worth says their crews use brine to pretreat roads 48 hours before rain or ice is forecasted and uses up to 30 trucks at a time. After the weather hits, the city applies a sand and salt mixture on top of any icy pavement.
The cities of Plano, Irving and Allen likewise told WFAA that they don’t have snowplows but have sand trucks and equipment used to pre-treat roads with brine.
“Our City of Plano Streets Division does not have snowplows as snow accumulation is not a typical event for this region as it would be for Northern states,” a city of Plano statement to WFAA reads. “If there is snow accumulation that causes issues, we do have front end loaders and heavy equipment to push snow to the side as needed.”
WFAA has reached out to the Texas Department of Transportation for more information about where and how snowplows are used during winter weather events in Texas. We’ll update this story as additional information becomes available.