Minnesota Drift Free Roads Design Tool Update

Summary

This project proposes to update key snow, wind and snow transport variables that underpin the Minnesota Drift-Free Roads Design Tool. The Minnesota Drift-Free Roads Design Tool has been an invaluable tool for MnDOT and other planners in the state, saving lives, preventing crashes and finding low-cost ways to reduce strain on winter road maintenance budgets. Minnesota winter temperatures and snowfall characteristics have changed significantly compared to the 1971-2000 climatology used in the current tool. Planners use the Minnesota Drift-Free Roads Design Tool to plan roads and snow fences that may have lifetimes of a decade or longer. It is possible that planners are using significantly outdated data when working to make safe roads, data that gets more outdated by the year. In addition, weather data from a variety of sources has become newly available in the last two decades. It is now possible to create greatly improved climatologies of winter weather variables in Minnesota. This combination of rapidly changing winters and greatly increased winter weather data availability provides a unique and urgent opportunity to provide the best available information for planners working to make Minnesota roads safe.