Abstract

Modeling snowdrift accumulation to determine snow fence performance in Wyoming
Track: Transportation
Authors: Chad Flynn, Jim Vanderweide

The WYDOT owns and maintains over 3,500 snow fences throughout the state. WYDOT has contracted Trihydro Corporation to inventory snow fences along the right-of-way of state and federal highways. The snow fence data is used by the Blowing Snow Research Division to study the effects and recommend improvements to the snow fence systems. As part of this research, we developed a custom model in Python that takes this snow fence data, determines orientation to prevailing wind direction, and creates a polygon of predicted snow accumulation on the downwind side of the fence. Intersecting these polygons with highway data enabled us to estimate potential snow drift hazards. This type of predictive modeling proved invaluable to WYDOT and their efforts to improve statewide snow fence systems. Further analysis of accident and road closure data is used to determine highway speed limits during storm events to reduce potential accidents and increase highway safety.