(St. Paul, MN) – The Minnesota Department of Transportation said the state spent $133 million in winter road maintenance costs last winter.

MnDOT said 2018-2019 brought the “most severe weather in the state in a decade,” in a new winter maintenance report released Wednesday.

There were a variety of factors that contributed to the high price tag for road maintenance over the 2018 – 2019 season.  MnDOT says 31 snow events led to 97.2 inches of snow.

Jed Falgren, the acting state maintenance engineer said snowfall amounts don’t tell the entire story: “Every area of the state experienced more hours of snowfall compared to the previous winter,” said Falgren.  Road and air temperature averages were down and hours of freezing rain were up – those elements have a huge impact on how quickly we can clear roads.”

It took snowplow drivers more than 198,000 hours of overtime to clear roads in the target timeframe, according to Falgren.

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