Halifax snow clearing budget chipped away by multiple storms

Step aside, April: February is now the cruellest month, at least for Haligonians.

Snow and other variations like wet snow and freezing rain have walloped Nova Scotia this month.

Coupled with consistently cold temperatures, the result has been mounds of snow and ice they ceased to be mere snowbanks after the first few rounds of snow.

Here's a break down of where the Halifax Regional Municipality's $20-million snow clearing budget is going this year:

Snow and truckloads of it

Since Feb. 1, Halifax Regional Municipality crews have removed 3,257 truckloads of snow and ice from streets and sidewalks and hauled them to undisclosed locations.

At 15 cubic metres per truckload, that's 48,855 cubic metres of snow.

If you were to redistribute that snow to cover hockey rinks, that's nearly two dozen rinks.

Elusive snow dump sites

There may be nearly 50,000 cubic metres of snow hauled to various municipal sites, but these locations remain a secret.

The city says it's for good reason.

"We do not disclose the locations in part so that private contractors don't dump their snow at our locations," Tiffany Chase, a spokeswoman for the Halifax Regional Municipality, said in an email to CBC News.

Tandem trucks, trackless machines and more

The municipality owns some of its gear and the rest is contracted.

The city has 10 trackless machines that crews use to plow the city's sidewalks, along with 44 other pieces of equipment including loaders, tandem trucks, five-tonne trucks and three-tonne trucks that municipal crews use to clear the streets.

But that doesn't get the job done. Hourly contractors add between 120 and 150 other pieces of equipment, including salt trucks, plows and loaders.

Thousands of kilometres of roads

The Halifax Regional Municipality is responsible for clearing a total of 3,800 lane kilometres of streets, according to the municipality.

For example, one kilometre of a one-lane street equals a one lane kilometre; one kilometre of a two-lane street equals two lane kilometres.

Municipal crews clear the Halifax downtown core and Dartmouth streets, accounting for 2,220 lane kilometres. Contractors clear the other 1,580 lane kilometres throughout the city.

Of the 950 kilometres of sidewalks, contractors clears 840 kilometres and municipal crews clear the other 110 kilometres.