2011 Yard Waste Ends

admin — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:24:20 +0000

Yard waste collection ends TODAY!!!

2011-09-13 Wildfire

admin — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:03:04 +0000

Smoke from Minnesota wildfires caused quite a stir in Northern Cook and Lake Counties this afternoon. According to a Septemeber 13th Associated Press release, ”The fire started August 18 with a lighting strike 20 miles from Ely, but only began spreading quickly this week in windy, dry conditions. The fire raced 16 miles east in a single day from Monday to Tuesday…The plume came from a fire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a lake-dotted region along the Minnesota-Canada border, that grew swiftly this week to cover nearly 160 square miles.” The National Weather Service stated “The smoke will likely persist through the afternoon and into the overnight hours, and continue to the southeast across much of northeast Illinois and Northwest Indiana through this evening…Smoke is prevalent enough to cause people to report difficulty breathing and burning of their eyes. Individuals with respiratory problems should use caution while smoke affects the area.” The National Weather Service release this animation of the smoke plume heading to Chicago on Sunday the 11th. Please if you are experiencing any difficulty breathing C A L L 9 1 1.

Summer 2011

admin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:14:20 +0000

New Service Truck:

Once again this year we used the extraordinary talents of our crew to assemble a utility box and rails for use on our service truck. Our crew painted and fastened the utility box to the vehicle as well as fabricated the utility rails which mount directly in the box. This service vehicle will allow the crew to carry useful tools and equipment with them into the field.

Culvert Replacement:

Our 2008 mini excavator allows us to remove and replace roadway culverts without closing the road. We plan to replace all of the corrugated metal culverts under the roadways that will be repaved this fall. They are over 40 years old and will be replaced with concrete or plastic culverts. The new culverts will last longer due to their ability to repel the effects of winter road salts. The culvert replacements will be done in house by our talented crew which will save 30% of the replacement costs.

Intergovernmental Agreements for Salt:

With the pains of shoveling still lingering, Palatine Township Road District is already looking forward to the next winter season. We secured salt bids in late April for the upcoming winter and at a reduced unit price. We were able to do this by joining forces with the Village of Inverness. By adding our requests together, we were both able to secure bids for the 2011-2012 at a savings to the taxpayers. Please view the BIDDING DOCUMENTS page for more information on our website.

Website Updates:

There are new additions to our website found at www.palhwy.com. We have included all sorts of information for your purpose. We added the BIDDING DOCUMENTS to the top bar. Under this heading you can find our SALT BID and RESULTS for the 2011-2012 Winter Season. The second menu bar contains many other sources of information that we broke out into several categories, such as CAPITOL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS, SERVICES, PRECIPITATION and WATER QUALITY. Under these headings please find information regarding paving projects, yard waste dates and guidelines, blizzard and rainfall totals and finally information for land and homeowner involvement regarding protection of our streams and rivers.

Spring 2011

admin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:04:43 +0000

Winter 2010-2011:

This year started out just like the two previous years, with a cold and snowy December. We were busy keeping the roads clear for all of your Christmas celebrations. We were in the midst of our second year of a reduced salt diet to clear the roads of snow and ice. While using less salt, we had to do a little more plowing in order to push the snow to the edge of the roadway, which may have meant you had to do a little more shoveling. Together, we were able to reduce the amount of salt that enters into our streams and rivers. This technique provided you with the same level of service while reducing our salt usage. At the moment of this article, we anticipated a 30% reduction of salt usage from the previous year.

Summer 2011 Asphalt Paving:

This year’s asphalt resurfacing program will include the following streets: most of the Thunderbird Estates Subdivision and Joan Drive, Nantucket Lane, Whispering Oaks, Hidden Oaks Drive, Deerpath Lane and Crooked Creek Lane in the Barrington Trails Subdivision area, located in the northwest corner of the Palatine Township. For a complete list of streets and locations please visit our website, www.palhwy.com. In the Capital Improvements section you will find the location maps that outline the proposed improvements. Also, be sure to stop back to get all your permitting forms and other useful information.

Yard Waste Program 2011:

This successful, annual program will start on April 11th and will continue until November 22nd. A packet with the rules, pickup schedule and yard waste stickers will be delivered to resident’s in late March. For your gardening use, we have compost (aged ground up yard waste) available for pick-up at the Road District facility, located at: 530 N. Smith Street, Palatine. Call 847-358-6336 for directions.

July 2011

admin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:27:15 +0000

The first day of July brought these omnious clouds to the Chicagoland area. However, over the next few weeks we received little to no rain and endured hot and humid days as seen in this graphic. Since June 22 we have only received 0.06″ of rain which caused moisture stress in the first layers of soil which turned our lawns brown. However, on the morning of July 11 we received approximately 0.4″ of rain which was a welcomed relief, however it also brought powerful winds bringing down trees and power outages for nearly 868,000 homes. This “Derecho” gave us cooler temperatures for a moment. Just when power was restored to the last customer, we received a heat wave that hasn’t been felt in 6 years. Really feeling the heat, humidity and lack of rain, the “Ring of Fire” weather system dropped a “Deluge” on us over a two day period with one of the days becoming the wettest day in history. Ending in July we received more rain and high temperatures that resulted in wettest month on record and the third hottest.

Deluge 2011-07-23

admin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:26:56 +0000

Part of the “Ring of Fire” that engulfed much of the country, storms arrived here and packed a one-two punch. After many weeks of high heat, humidity and drought like conditions with only trace amounts of rainfall we received a barrage of precipitation that rivaled hurricane conditions. The last bit of rainfall we had was the “Derecho” on July 11 with 0.49″ and before that on June 22 with 0.42″ as measured by the rain gauge on Algonguin Road at Salt Creek. This “Deluge” storm system dropped approximately 0.4″ at 1 am Friday morning and then 0.9″ at 9 am. However, the heart of the storm dropped 4.7″ from midnight Friday night to 3 am Saturday morning. The chart to the right demonstrates how the rain fell. Afterwards it was determined that July 23 from midnight to midnight was “Chicago’s wettest calendar day in modern weather history” which totalled 6.86″ of precipitation. Many areas within the Township limits experienced some sort of flooding. One in particular was the Plum Grove Estates Subdivision in the southeast corner of the Township, located at Algonquin and Route 53. Based on the rainfall gauges and tables it seems that this “Deluge” was a 50 year storm event which has a probablity of occurrence of 2% for any given year.

Derecho 2011-07-11

admin — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 02:11:15 +0000

Monday morning’s storm event was over before it even started. At around 7:45 am a squall line with damaging winds of up to 60 mph. arrived into our area. This storm system started in the western states on Sunday afternoon and by Monday night it finally blew of the eastern coast totalling a 1.400 mile long path of destruction across 17 states within 30 hours. Unfortunately we received very little rain, approximately 0.40 inches. For further information of the storm check out Tom Skilling’s recap.

While collecting yard waste in the southern section of the the Township, we quickly responsed to the storm. Palatine Township Road District crews were dispersed to areas inflicted by the wind. By Monday afternoon all roads were accessible. As a result though, we had to postpone all yard waste collection until Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Southern sections of the Township are targeted for storm clean up and yard waste collection on Tuesday. Homeowners in the northern section will have yard waste and storm clean up Wednesday and Thursday.

In order to help us help you, please move all storm-related trees, limbs and brush to the street. To expedite the process, limbs should be placed with stems toward the road. Also if you have small brush and branches, you can tie them up with twine in bundles 4ft. or less in length and 2ft. or less in diameter.

The crews will make one final trip through the Township on Friday. Please call the the Road District 847.358.6336 if you have any further questions. Our garage is without power at the moment however, we are operating a generator which allows us to communicate and coordinate all necessary operations.

June 2011

admin — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:26:52 +0000

Coming off the heels of wet months, June tallys 14 measureable rainfall events and will be the 5th wettest June in 84 years. The total amount of precipation measured at O’Hare was 3.39″ however Midway totalled 7.29″. Our monitoring rain gauge calculated 3.27″. Early in the month we had periods of hot and of course humid weather. June provided us with temps that have been hottest since since Aug 2, 2006 with 4 days above 90 degrees mark. If that wasn’t enough June 8th to 9th had the biggest temperature swing in 23 years from a high of 95 degrees to 50 degrees in the afternoon of the 9th. Mid month brought a cool down of sorts but gave way to high winds and a possible tornado through Cook County. An EF1 tornando was spotted from Downers Grove to Mt Prospect with 75-80 mph winds reported along the way. Large swaths of destruction were seen Tuesday evening June 21 due to winds. Five general types of straight line winds are defined as downburst, microburst, gust front, bow echo and derecho. This storm seemed similiar to the “Derecho” of August ’08 when fast moving thunderstorms produce destruction over hundreds of miles. Downburst and gust front winds however seemed to be the culprit for most of the damage.

May 2011

admin — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:18:44 +0000

May 2011 has been one for the record books according to ChicagoWeatherCenter.com and Meteorologist Richard Koeneman reports that we received approximately 7.19″ of rain for the month. Click here for the monthly total precipitation. Over the Memorial Day weekend, mainly on Sunday at noon from approximately 10:00 am to 1:30 a.m., we received 1.7 inches of rain. The following pdf document shows how the rain fell. (2011-05-30-Rainfall Data) Based on Bulletin 70 summer rainfall tables, page 79, the storm event is approximately a 2 year recurrence interval, which means that this storm has a 50% probability of occurring within any given year.

100 Year Storm and Probability

Additional images of the storm that fell over the Memorial Day Weekend.

National Weather Service Precipitation Data

Tabulation of Data and Images

April 2011

admin — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:38:12 +0000

This month has truly been a record breaker. In rainfall alone it ranks as the 17th wettest month. According to Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling of WGN news, “Rain-weary Chicagoans won’t find this hard to believe. April 2011 has produced 16 days of measurable rain—55 percent more than normal and the greatest number of measurably rainy April days here in the 50 years since 1961! The month’s 4.56 inches of rain through Tuesday April 26th ranks as the 17th rainiest April in 140 years of records. While 124 have been drier, only 16 have been wetter.” Tom’s Blog

By April 29th the total rainfall from the state averaged 7.45 inches, breaking the previous record of 7.13 inches in 1957. The Chicagoland Area received approximately 4 to 6 inches as seen in this image. The record for the state was Anna at 20.01 inches of rainfall.