Pavement Temperature Notes for Crews: A Simple Recording Card

Why record it

Pavement temperature explains more storm-to-storm variation than most crews expect.

1. It explains why snow stuck on one route and not another. Air temperature alone does not account for that difference.
2. It lets you compare edge wear and treatment use across storms. Without it, every storm looks different for no visible reason.
3. It gives crews a shared language when they report conditions. “Cold pavement, dry snow” is a usable report; “it was slippery” is not.

Recording card

How to use the notes

The notes become useful when they are aggregated, not when they are collected.

1. Collect cards after each storm and enter them in a shared sheet.
2. Look for patterns: where does packed snow appear at a given pavement temperature?
3. Compare edge wear per hour on cold and mild nights.
4. Review at the end of the season and set your own reference ranges.

Measurement cautions

Temperature readings are only comparable if the device and the method stay the same.

• Different sensors and meters read differently; use the same device and note it.
• A handheld infrared meter reads the surface it points at, and shade, wet films and angle can affect it.
• One reading is a snapshot; the trend matters.

Limits

I give no temperature thresholds. Take them from your agency or supplier and test them against your own notes.

A worked reading of the card

Suppose, as an invented example, that after a season you sort the cards by pavement trend and find that on falling-trend nights the crews noted packed snow on one route far more often than on the others. That does not prove a cause, but it tells you where to look first: shading, a bridge or an exposed stretch. Add a line to the card for that route, test one change, and see whether the notes improve. The card earns its keep when it points you to a question.

Boundary: No temperature thresholds or treatment rates are given; take them from your agency or supplier and test them against your own notes.