Winter is here and gritting crews are on standby to hit the road anytime of the day or night.

With over 13,000 tonnes of salt in stock to keep 684 miles of vital A and B road open this winter, Dorset Council is primed for a dip in temperature.

Last winter, gritters were sent out 54 times and used over 3,500 tonnes of salt. The season lasted longer than usual, with the first run on 30 October 2018 and the last run on 2 April 2019, but the overall amount of salt was lower than in 2017, when the Beast from the East took hold.

To keep residents and businesses moving, 23 drivers are on call for every 12-hour period, to salt the main gritting network and, in prolonged extreme temperatures, the community link routes.

In snow conditions, gritters will concentrate solely on priority north/south and east/west routes – 22 sections of road – to keep them clear of snow before then clearing the remaining A and B road gritting network, and then finally work on clearing community link roads.

However, in extreme snow conditions, our advice will always be to only travel if absolutely necessary.

Help salt work

Salt needs to be dissolved into a solution to work. When we grit, we need vehicles to travel on it and work it into a solution to ‘activate’ it.  If you travel early in the morning or are the first to drive on a gritted road, please drive with care.

Even on treated roads we can’t guarantee there won’t be ice. Rain can wash salt off the road, as well as water run-off from fields.

Drivers should drive to the conditions – reducing their speed and increasing their stopping distance – check that tyres, brakes and lights are in good working order and remember, even if gritters have been out, roads can still be slippy.

We avoid peak commuter times wherever possible.

Air temp Vs road temp

Why aren’t you gritting? Sometimes it feels cold but the road surface temperature can still be warm.

Early in the season the air temperature is often colder than the road temperature. This is due to still having longer days and the angle of the sun being able to warm the road surface – which is handily black to help attract that heat! This heat is then slowly released through the night and prevents ice from forming. The layers of a road hold on to the heat from the day longer than grassy areas/verges.

Later in the season, particularly January and February, the air temperature can be higher than the road surface temperature. This is due to the days being darker and the sun being lower- so the ground has less time during the day to capture any heat.