Michigan Weather: The Perfect Recipe for Potholes [VIDEO]
Have you noticed any new potholes on your daily route over the last couple of days? It's likely you will, as Michigan's current weather is creating the perfect recipe for potholes.
Potholes are so rampant in Michigan that complaining about them is practically tradition -- a rite of passage, if you will, as Michigan teenagers acquire licenses and become young adults. Gretchen Whitmer even adopted "fix the damn roads" as a campaign slogan as she made her bid to become Michigan's Governor and morphed that slogan into a similar one, saying we need to "fix the damn road ahead" as Michigan attempts to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.
But fixing the damn roads may be a tall order as Michigan's current weather is helping create potholes faster than road crews can tend to them.
We've all heard of the "freeze/thaw cycle."
Our area will see several of these freeze/thaw cycles over the next few days. Temperatures during the day will be above freezing, in the 30s and even 40s. But nighttime temps will plummet into the 20s, creating the perfect recipe for Michigan potholes.
WXYZ Meteorologist Kevin Jeanes explains in the video below that potholes are formed when water seeps through cracks in the asphalt and reaches the sub-base. We've had a great deal of melting snow, so there's a lot of water pooling below the surface of our roads. When temps dip below 32 degrees at night, that water freezes and expands, which pushes the pavement up.
"That freezing and expansion create voids and gaps between the pavement and the base below it. As cars are driving over it, more cracks happen, it opens up, and then you get the holes you see."
Use this link to report potholes to the Michigan Department of Transportation.