Mild winter impacts businesses

Mild barely begins to describe the winter of 2019-20 in the Mid-Ohio Valley.

On Monday, a record high temperature of 66 degrees punctuated one of the warmest, wettest winters in memory. With the first week of February nearly at an end on Thursday, Marietta had seen no measurable snow.

“This is not common, we are way behind normal for snow,” meteorologist Ray Young of the National Weather Service office in Charleston, W.Va., said Thursday.

“It’s much warmer and wetter than normal. We have three and a half inches more rain, and at this point of the winter it would be normal to have 13 inches of snow,” he said. The past few weeks have seen days of spring temperatures between long periods of gray, intermittent rain and clouds.

The mild temperatures, Young said, allow the intrusion of moist air from the south, creating conditions for persistent rainfall.

John Brammer, store manager at Apex True Value Hardware in Marietta, said the weather has affected the store’s profile of goods sold.

“We haven’t sold that many snow shovels or that much ice melting material, but we have sold a lot of straw to people trying to soak up moisture in soggy ground,” he said. On the flip side of that, he said, the rain has also hamstrung farmers trying get the straw in from their fields.

If the weather pattern holds into spring, he said, soils and lawns can be expected to develop mold, moss and mildew, which means sales of items like Moss Out and fungicides should be brisk.

Brammer said the chaotic weather which has produced several April-like days in midwinter has residents looking forward to spring.

“People are wanting to plant grass seed, but the problem is that it will still probably go below freezing and kill any growth,” he said. “With 60 degrees temperatures, people are dying to get outside and do something. With all this rain, there’s some cabin fever going around.”

Dustin Huck’s business, Cutting Edge Landscaping, offers snow removal business in the winter, but it’s been an off-year for that service.

“Things have been slower than last year so far, but maybe in February we’ll get a little bit of snow,” he said. “We’ve been focusing on getting ready for spring, doing equipment maintenance to prepare for the spring landscaping rush.”

Huck said one bright side of the snowless weather is that there has been some demand for leaf cleanup as customers look ahead to spring.

“We’ve had some nice days when we can do that, keep people’s properties looking good,” he said.

His customers are also yearning for spring.

“If we get snow, we’re prepared, but we keep getting phone calls for estimates, earlier than usual, for the spring landscaping rush,” he said.

Huck said he’s been doing snow removal for the past five years.

“This is the mildest winter I’ve seen,” he said.

The coming weekend might offer a bit of typical winter.

“There’s a strong cold front coming, and moisture behind it should allow us to pick up a dusting of snow, maybe up to an inch,” Young said. “Certainly not enough to make up for the deficit.”

Snow is forecast for today after heavy rain Thursday night turns to snow under the influence of a cold front. A different front, Young said, will cool things off Saturday and Sunday, with the air expected to dry out Sunday. Early next week, the pattern of cool, rainy weather is expected to resume.

Ohio Department of Transportation District 10 was preparing Thursday for the possibility of ice and snow accumulation predicted to start early today. The agency stocks up on salt and sand before winter, but spokeswoman Ashley Rittenhouse said there’s been little demand.

“This year is a historic low,” she said. District 10, which covers Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Noble, Vinton and Washington counties, has 123 dump trucks equipped to spread salt and sand, and this year has on hand 40,000 tons of the mixture, she said.

Motorists are asked to watch out for the trucks.

“The crews’ shift starts at 3 a.m.,” she said.

Michael Kelly can be contacted at mkelly@mariettatimes.com.

Winter of 2019-20

• No measurable snow through Feb. 6.

• Normal snowfall at this point in winter: 13.5 inches.

• Record high on Feb. 3: 66 degrees.

Source: National Weather Service, Charleston, W.Va.