How long would it take to melt all the snow from Boston’s streets and sidewalks?

Record snowfall this year – at least 100 inches since late January 2015 as of this writing – has nearly brought the City of Boston to its cold knees. The City has made a valiant (or maybe quixotic) attempt to attack the problem head on by employing diesel-powered snow melters. The Mayor has touted the tonnage of snow melted as a measure of progress. The city has use of four (borrowed) snow melters, with a combined capacity of melting 700 tons of snow per hour. That sounds impressive, but how big of a dent does it make? Let’s figure it out.

According to MassDOT data, there are approximately 1,332 miles of roads and rights of way in Boston. If we take into account the widths of these roads and rights of way (including sidewalks), we calculate a total area of 10.71 square miles or 298,643,564 square feet.

Let’s assume 100 inches of snow has fallen uniformly across Boston, which equates to a depth of about 8.33 feet of snow (taller than Big Bird!).

The volume of all this snow is then Area x Depth = 2,488,696,367 cubic feet of snow on Boston’s streets and sidewalks. Whoa.

 Because it’s been so cold, we can assume that the snow has been fairly light and fluffy (yet no less annoying). Let’s assume a density of 10 pounds per cubic foot of snow.

The combined weight of all that snow is then Density x Volume = 24,886,963,667 pounds of snow. At 2,000 pounds per ton, that comes to 12,443,482 tons of snow on Boston’s streets and sidewalks. Double whoa.

At 700 tons of snow melted per hour, the time it would take the City’s snow melters to clear Boston’s streets and sidewalks is 12,443,482 tons ÷ 700 tons/hour = 17,776 hours!

So, running around the clock – 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year - it would take just over 2 years to melt all the snow from Boston’s streets and sidewalks!

At that rate we should be ready for the next big snowstorm by late February 2017 (assuming it doesn’t snow again before then).

Of course, this whole exercise may sound a little unrealistic, since we all know that the City makes no effort to clear snow from sidewalks.