They had how much snow? Learn how one county dealt with 700 inches this season | Across the Sky podcast

For many of us, winter snow is an occasional inconvenience. For those living in the Sierra Nevada region of California though, it's a way of life.

Placer County stretches roughly 65 miles from the suburbs of Sacramento all the way to the border of Nevada and the shore of Lake Tahoe. Dealing with massive amounts of snow, with few places to move it, is a regular problem here. But this winter was truly exceptional. More than 700 inches of snow fell, making it their second snowiest on record.

On this week's episode, Donny Francis, Placer County's Road District Superintendent, talks about what this winter was like and the huge effort that was needed to try and keep the county's roads clear.

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About the Across the Sky podcast

The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team:

Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia.

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Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Hello, everybody. Meteorologist Joe Martucci here with the Across the Sky podcast, Lee Enterprise's national weather podcast. I am joined this week with Sean Sublette from the Richmond Times Dispatch. Matt Holiner in the Midwest. Kirsten Lang is on maternity leave. We wish her the best. She delivered a healthy baby boy not too long ago, so congratulations to her. We miss her.

We will see her in a couple of months. We'll be back here on the podcast sometime later in June or July. Guys, this week we're talking about snow. And I know for many of you listening, you're like, Hey, snow season ended a month ago or three months ago. Or if you're like Sean and I, we didn't even have a snow season.

But that is a much different story out west. We'll take you to Lake Tahoe, where one town, two homes got 435.4 inches of snow. Another place got over 700 inches of snow, and that is with Donny Francis. He is the road district superintendent for Placer County in California. Was talking to us all about. You may not know Placer County, but you do.

Now, one of the towns there that is Tahoe Cities is right at Lake Tahoe. They actually have an interesting mix of the valley areas, the foothills and then these mountains here. We had the pleasure of chatting with him. We'll go over to Shawn. This was quite the episode, especially for us. Shawn, where I think we saw maybe combined like White Point eight inches of snow between Richmond and South Jersey.

I mean, yeah, we're our big snow seasons here are 20 or 30 inches you know and they would get that in a day, you know, several hundred inches of snow this year in Tahoe. And, you know, his county there goes from from the Central Valley all the way up toward Lake Tahoe. So have a huge range in elevation there.

And they have to serve areas around ski resorts, too. So they have a wide variety of terrain. They've got to handle narrow roads with these population, you know, these small population centers that are densely populated right around the ski areas. And just some of the things that they have to do to get this job done are phenomenal. Well, after this winter and all the snow pictures we were seeing on social media and all the news stories about just round after round, we knew we had to get somebody on the podcast to talk about that, who is out there in the trenches dealing with injury, like somebody from like the Department of Transportation or somebody who's

clearing the roads because what does it take to clear hundreds of inches of snow? I mean, where it is just dumping and dumping. So I am so glad that we are on the show because it is truly a unique experience, you know, and this hasn't happened in a long time. So some good stories to share. Yeah. Especially when he talks about the number of hours that that they've worked over the years and taking care to ski resorts.

And when he was talking about the ski resorts, I was like, I wonder why they would take care of those, you know, roads right around there. But it's such a huge tourist attraction, obviously, for everybody who's coming. If you can't get to the ski resort, the county is losing out on money from the businesses. And I think I know I have I don't know if you guys saw there is a one photo of the snow actually up to the ski lift, the chairs there on the chairlift where they could even move an chairlift.

The snow is so high. So it was it was pretty incredible. So without further ado, we're going to turn it over to Donny Francis. And we're all about this season's snow near Lake Tahoe. So we are here with Donny Francis from Placer County in California. Here he is with the the Public Works Department. He is a road district superintendent.

And he has seen a lot a lot of snow all winter and spring long, too. Donny, good to be here with you today. How's it going? It's going good. How are you? Good, Good. We're doing good. You were saying, when we were recording this on April 20th, that it's a nice sunny day in some 80 degree weather. So that'll take out, you know, maybe one or 2% of the hundreds of inches of snow this winter.

It's certainly been near record breaking to record breaking across the area. Let me ask you this. And I kind of do I do a couple of road department stories a year, you know, mostly in New Jersey or I should say, all in New Jersey, of course. What's the mindset of your road crews going into the winter and let's just say going into this winter?

And what's the morale like after such a tremendous snow season? I know it's still going to be going in parts, but what's the feeling like before and after? I think after, you know, a long summer, it gets pretty hot here, too. A lot of people look forward to winter. And, you know, we got a lot of people in the valley down here that volunteer to plow snow in the snow districts.

So we got three snow districts. There's about nine, ten guys per district. So I think a lot of them look forward to it getting up there because they know they're going to make a lot of extra money, get to play in the snow, run heavy equipment. So that's always a morale booster until you get these record breaking storms where guys are stuck up there.

You know, we have to put them in a condo or hotel for I think the last stretch was 31 days straight away from their family. So I think some people really dig it. You know, they love it. And some people kind of just, you know, taper off and get tired and you're working 12 to 16 hours a day, maybe noon to midnight or midnight to noon.

So it gets tiring. So then, you know, a lot of people look forward to spring and summer after the door. And from from what I see here and this is a total from a cooperative observer program stations associate with the National Weather Service 316 inches of snow in Tahoe City. Donna, I want to be honest with you. I don't know if I've even seen 316 inches of snow in my life in New Jersey, let alone in one winter.

I believe Colfax saw 62 inches of snow. Can you give us a lay of the land? What does a county look like geographically and on a climate basis as well, in terms of what you're seeing during the winter months within the county? So we see everything from flooding to, you know, rockslides, mudslides, significant amounts of snow. We go from a valley level, you know, a couple hundred feet elevation where it's flat farmlands, rice growers, and you get a lot of flooding down there.

Appear to the foothills. You'll see some snow and then up to 7000 feet on Donner Summit where we got actually this year, record is 730 inches of snow. And we we plow roads at 7000 foot elevation. So to spring serene lakes, we see the most snow there. You know, I think we're we're usually right top most snow in the United States for you know and expenditures and then up to 5 million, you know, a year in snow removal.

So we go from valley to mountain, you know, I-80 corridor. You know, Caltrans takes care of 80, but we take care of all the subdivision side roads and everything in Placer County. It's a pretty big area, 1100 miles of roads we take care of. And depending on elevation, you'll get, you know, those 1100, 3 to 500 miles of snow covered roads that we have to plow.

Big area. Absolutely. I'm trying to wrap my mind, too, around 730 inches of snow. Now. I'm trying to get an idea of what your workflow is like. Like how often are those plows having to go like, what was the the worst period of it for you? I mean, I'm sure you you've been busy all winter long and into the spring, but what was the busiest stretch for you and how many drivers did you have out and how frequently were they having to clear the roads late February onto, say, the 27th and 28, we got 52 inches of snow in a 48 hour period.

We had bad storms in December, late February, just in Tahoe, we have 12 graders with push plows, eight blowers or push plow trucks. It takes just in Tahoe when we go to 24 hour shifts. We did a stretch of 31 days straight where we worked and that takes up to 28 guys to run that equipment around the clock.

And then you come downhill this way a little bit, actually higher elevation. When I say down the hill, our farthest north is Tahoe City, but before that's Donner Summit. And there we have four more graders, five Rotary snowball loaders, multiple push plows, because when the snow level drops, it come all the way down here to Auburn. Then we got to get our valley guys with two wheel drive plow trucks down here with chains.

And it's just it's go, go, go. 24 seven. Yeah. So Shawn, here in Virginia, again, just for some kind of additional perspective, we know it has not been as busy. The last few few seasons have not been as busy as this year, obviously. But can you speak to how much how much more busy you are regarding time commitments and manpower in terms of getting these things done?

I mean, is it is it six or seven times the workflow? Is it one or two times the workflow? Did you have to was there a big hiring to get people? Were you running out of resources in terms of what we've seen in years before this this snow year? How how, how is this tax to resources? I've been here 22 years and it's the worst I've ever seen.

We we've had the contract out both for contractors to help us remove snow and plow extra snow. We have school roads we can't get to. You know, some days they don't want to close the school. So we have contractors we've rented, we've rented extra graders and push plows. We don't really hire extra help other than contractors, but we have 80, 80, not 80 men in our road department.

And we ask for volunteers every year to go up to sort of the to go volunteer to pull snow. So, I mean, it takes at one at one time there's probably 40, 50 guys working at once just to plow snow. So in terms of the weather part of this, the weather forecast, who are you working with? Who are your weather partners or partner that you're working with throughout the winter?

Mostly? Noah Got it. So the National Weather Service. And are you are you actually speaking with them or like are you speaking with them over the phone or is it something where you're just you're you're reading their forecasts on their website? How does that work? And, you know, before this big, you know, let's say your bigger events, how far out are you planning with their forecast?

Well, we have meetings with Noah once, twice a year. And when we have these big events coming in, we will team up with the Office of Emergency Services, which they work with the weather, you know, more than we do. So we'll go have meetings with them and just kind of get a game plan together of what we're going to do and even after and how are we going to recover from it.

We have people get trapped in their homes. Oh, yes. Sheriff's search and rescue. Everybody's on board to chip in and, you know, help get through the on average, an average year for us is about 215 inches of snow. And this year, you know, significantly more 730. So and I should ask, too, where do you live? Are you living in the mountains or are you down in the valley?

I'm in the foothills, actually, so I'm right in the middle of it all. But I've worked in every district we have in my 22 years here. So I've seen the flooding, the snow that we had early winter. We had trees, low snow, which brought down tons of trees. So then we go into tree clearing mode and then we had to hire contractors for that.

I think we put out 500,000 for five contractors to help clear roads and and just open it up for emergency services and so we can get thousands there to open the roads. Okay. So here's kind of a another daunting question I have with my little Eastern bias here. So I apologize. But once you remove this snow, where do you put it?

I think Midwest. And that's why our way, when you're driving up our roads up there, the walls of snow are like 20 foot high. So it's just a the process, the repeated process constantly work when it's snowing. Plows are on the ground, pushing it to the side. You know, you can ramp it off in certain places, but we don't have right away.

We just have road edge. So we plow. We plow. We plow. When you get a break in the storm, then we send all of our rotary snow blowers out, which cut the snow back. We blow it as far back as we can. Sometimes there's some open area. We can blow it. I mean, we have to stick it between houses.

For instance, in serene lakes, the walls are 20 feet high and sometimes you don't know where you're blowing it. You have to experience burying in propane tanks, putting it on people's roofs. We blow it windows quite often because you just can't see where it's going. So, yeah, it's a a process of pushing it off the road and then your roads get so narrow, you're down to one lane or you close them.

Then you just blow the snow paths back as possible some place. Some places like in Tahoe City, Caltrans has to blow it in the back of dump trucks and hold out because there's just no place to put it. And we almost ran into that this year. We say don't explain that to us one more time because I might have missed.

Are you saying you're putting plow and other dump trucks to hold the snow? Is that what you're saying? Yes. So there's some tight little neighborhoods and in cities up there, Tahoe City, Kings Beach, for one, where there's businesses and sidewalks, you get so much snow, you can only plow it so far. Then you have to blow it with a rotary snow blower and blow it in the back of a dump truck and hauling out to a storing staging area.

But what guys, basically, they do that every year in Kings Beach in Tahoe City. Wow. It's less than if you're listening to this podcast and you live out in the Mountain West and I'm sure you get it. I think for the three of us here who, you know, we've seen snow, but not snow like that, that that's just a wild experience.

We're here with Donny Francis from the Plaza County partment of Public Works. We're talking all about their crazy snow they had this past week. They're on the Across the Sky podcast. Back with you after the break.

And welcome back, everybody, to the Across the Sky podcast, Lee Enterprises National Weather Podcast. You can catch new episodes every Monday, wherever you get podcasts or on your favorite Lee Enterprises news website. Here we are with Donny Francis. He takes care of the county roads that surround Lake Tahoe, the same county that Tahoe City is in. That is the one that he is with in the state of California.

He is a road district superintendent. He was just telling us in the break here that 4700 hours work between the crews this winter. Can you tell us when your first day of plowing was this winter? And we're recording this on April 20th. So what was the last day that you guys have plowed so far? Well, you can stop me on that one.

Oh. Oh, man. On the first day about maybe that would be October, October, November. And then, you know, the storms come and go, or the worst part of the winter was beginning of December and end of February. Last time we plowed snow was actually last Monday. We got a couple inches up on the summit. Right. Okay. And that's April 17th, is what you're saying, that a couple days ago.

Roger. Okay. And you were saying you actually plow some of the ski resorts as well. Tell us about that. Well, we have to we have three actually. Tahoma has one to our main ski resorts or Palisades Olympic Valley, which used to be Squaw Valley. They held the Olympics there in the sixties. The Winter Olympics. And then we have Alpine Meadows.

So these are ski resorts in Placer County subdivisions. So there's houses, lots of houses, lots of streets. So we plow all the all the roads in and out and the subdivisions, the ski resorts plow their own parking lots, you know, groom their own runs and stuff. But yeah, those are elevations at around like six, 7000 feet in a lot of snow.

And Danny, I'm curious when you're in the worst of it, like that period you mentioned at the end of February, how do you prioritize, I mean, when the snow is just dumping and you're trying to get as many people out there as possible? I mean, you're basically I mean, it's just a continuous process going 24 seven. How do you prioritize which areas are getting the most coverage and which areas are you going to most really?

Is it by popular action? Is it by how big the road is? How significant is it by how much you just go to the snowiest area and focus on that? I mean, especially being such a large county and when it's snowing everywhere, how do you prioritize which areas to really focus on? Tahoe City. So we have ten zones that we have our own road district department there, and then Colfax has their own and they plow Donner Summit and Scherger.

So two Springs area. So they have a few different areas, zones we call them. And then Tahoe City, we have ten zones. So normally you start your zone at point A and B, right? So but on these heavy storms, you just by the time you get halfway through zone, you can't even tell you plowed. So prioritizing by main roads and main accesses.

So we'll just go hit school routes main roads, main roads I mean way like Alpine Meadows Road that goes into that huge subdivision, Olympic Valley. So you start out with your main arteries when you get these heavy snowstorms, start out with your main arteries to keep them open for emergencies and stuff like that. And then when you get those open, you branch off into your side streets and stuff and that's all the heavy store.

Normally you plow a zone from beginning to end and then you start it all over. And it's just a process because the snow doesn't start sometimes. So you might start your zone by the time you get back there, there's another 12 inches. That's just it. And it's tough for for me to fathom. So let me ask you this.

Are there even in a normal year, are there roads that you that are very high elevation that you was like, well, we're just not going to touch these this year. They're not easy to access in the first place. So we just let them go. And if so, are there additional ones in the year like you just had where you're we are like, we just can't keep up with everything.

So we're going to make these other ones exceedingly low priority and just let the snow pile up. Is there anything like that going on at all? Rarely, because we have residents that need, you know, access in and out. So we rarely let anything go. But we did this year have to leave some while we concentrated on the main arteries.

So yeah, there was roads that were inaccessible for a short amount of time. And you know, they get so much snow where you can't push the snow. So you take a blower out there and you just open it up with the blower and then you got to clean up behind that. So it's just a long process. We're supposed to plow every road once one pass every 12 hours, two passes every 24 hours, and that's just kind of our motto, just to keep everybody safe and have access.

You know, you said that you were that you're born and raised in the area you were and Sacramento and then moved to the foothills here. Most of the crews that you work with, the people who you know, are they from the area, do they understand what it is in such a, you know, snow heavy region like Tahoe? Is most of your crews local or do you have people who are coming from around the country or do you and I don't even know, do you have people say, hey, I want to come here because I love plowing snow so much, This is where I want to be.

Is this a haven for people who are who love snow plow? We have we have a guy from Maine, actually, he just retired. He splits his time from there. And here now, because he loves the snow so much. You work for us for years and he was the foreman in total. But normally it's just local people from around I'd say around California.

I don't think anybody flocks here to work, but it's mostly local people, a lot of people that have grown up here and, you know, they know they know what's happened and where we get snow and where we don't. Do you run up against people who have relocated there recently and really have had to learn what this is all about or most of the people that that are in your service area have been there a long time and they kind of get it.

Or do you still run into these people who are relatively new and they're surprised? Yes, that's one of our the biggest problems we have for complaints is people that moved to Tahoe from maybe the Bay Area. And and if it was this year, then they're always calling and when's the plow come? And I haven't seen a plow. You haven't plowed in days.

Well, we have a zone or system or plows that we can go to the GP's and we can track and look and see where the plows been so we can say no, it's been plowed, just not another foot since you looked. So yeah, that's a huge hurdle for us is to just to curb the complaints because we've got a young people, young money that moves up there and you know, they want stuff done Now in the winter like this.

It's hard to keep up with just a normal winter. It's hard to keep up with. But yeah, we got a lot of new people in the area and they've never experienced snow like this before. So lots of complaints this year. And I'm sure after a winter like this, you know, with so many crews out there plowing for so many hours, I'm sure you've heard a few good stories this season.

Is there one in particular, though, from just chit chatting with the guys as they're coming back and forth, coming in for a quick break and going back out? Is there one story in particular from from this season that stands out to you? Not really. I mean, you get a lot of there's a lot of good in that. You get more complaints than you do, you know, pats on the back.

But, you know, probably the the best one was when we had the avalanche in the Olympic Valley, a huge avalanche came down and hit some condos. So, you know, of course, they call us to the rescue. We have to get in there and open it up for emergency search and rescue and that. So we had we sent graders out there and blowers, and that was probably the best story of the year, you know, just to help out, you know, save some people and get them out to safety.

Comparing this to the record setting storms since they've been recorded, we're number two right now. Behind 1982, they got over 800 inches. There's a story. It's called the 1982 Avalanche Alpine Letters. And that one actually killed some people. That was that was the biggest record setting snowfall ever recorded here. So this was kind of a flashback because I just watched the documentary.

And then here we get hit with another avalanche. What I'm coordinating snow removal. So that was a good story. Just to help out, can you give people a scale of about how much terrain an avalanche is, is covering? You know, there's there's been an avalanche. How how big of like a square mile area do you have to go, you know, effectively excavate after an event like this just to a ballpark?

I haven't seen anything bigger than probably a square mile. Okay. So usually there is multiple avalanches in years like this. They may come down on the highway. There is a self triggered avalanche control. The Alpine meadows does they set off, you know, compression bombs and cause them themselves. And sometimes it covers our road. We have to clean them up, but don't usually see a lot of avalanches that consume buildings or people, you know.

So this was a first for me. Those compression bombs sound similar to prescribed burning for wildfires. They're intentionally set off to to limit something that's unintentional and bigger. And I know that you said that was good. You said that you also brought up the, you know, the record snowfall mount. I believe you said just those in the 1980s.

What I'm curious about is could you tell us how technology has changed with plowing snow over the decades, you know, in terms of either equipment or salting or brining even how much weather, as you know, weather forecasting and improvements there has impacted your job? It's changed a lot. Like, for instance, in 82, you know, watching the documentary, you see these old trucks with push plows on it and stuff like how do you even I think that's back when they lost roads or there wasn't enough population up there, they didn't have to plow as much.

So it's been getting a lot better. When I started in 2000, I was running a 1959 international snowblower. That's so that was all back then too. Yeah. So, yeah, we've got a lot of new equipment, but yeah, it's changed a lot. We have a lot more equipment. It's too still though. It's not enough to keep up with the population and the houses they're building and, you know, roads and we're getting new equipment constantly.

We got new graders this year, we got new blowers, so we're getting up to date with equipment. Finally, I think our oldest piece of equipment is like a 95 blower, which is about done. Yeah, I bet, especially after this winter. And you know, my final question for you, Donnie, is, you know, now that we're getting these warmer temperatures and finally less snow, are there any concerns, though, about all the snow that is still piled up in these massive piles, this huge amount of snow?

Are there any concerns now that we're getting these warm temperatures with the melting? What are your thoughts about that? What are your crews doing to prepare for all of this melting snow now, there's already been warnings for flooding like on the Walker River, but that goes off in towards Nevada. If we get the heat, there's no in-between anymore.

It seems like with these winters, the summers, it's goes from cold as heck to 100 degrees. And with this much snow up there, all of our reservoirs are finally full or close to. So they're letting water out. Rivers are at capacity, so they're predicting some more flooding from all the snowmelt that's coming because it's already warming up quick.

It's like I said, it's going to be 80 this week, so that'll turn to 100 within probably a month. So for us that all we can do is close roads. You know, we don't have the power to to build levees or stuff, but, you know, our state does and they do without some breaches in levees this year because some a lot of flooding and loss of houses and stuff.

But yeah, there's already some warnings for the well, this was very eye opening, especially if you live in a place that doesn't get snow. But even for the three of us or who are low on the snow totem pole, Midwesterners and mid-Atlantic people here, it was really interesting to hear your insight. Dani, anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up with the podcast or I just wish I had some pictures to show you and we'll do the video series next time.

If you do some photos though, in the next couple of days, shoot us an email. We can we can get some out as we talk about this episode before we release it here, which I'm sure everyone's listening to now, either on April 24th or sometime thereafter. But otherwise we really appreciate the time and hope you guys have a nice long summer break here.

And you know, hopefully next winter will be a fun challenge, but hopefully not record setting like this past winter. So thank you again for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you. And I'll definitely send you some pictures. Awesome. Sounds good. We are going to take one more break then three of us. We're going to wrap it all up here on the Across the Sky podcast.

Thanks again to Donnie for the time here. We know things have been slowing down for him, at least on the snow aspect. But like he said, they're now moving into flooding season with all of that melted snow that has to come. But we do hope he does enjoy a nice long summer here. As you look this up, the most snow that I've experienced in a winter season is 68.2 inches.

That was in 2010, 2011. And some places didn't even see 10% of that or excuse me, that was only not even 10% of what some places up by him saw for the winter. Still chilly, incomprehensible amount of snow. Now, what what did you think of the interview? Well, you know, the mountains are just a whole nother a whole nother animal of your if you're a plains person like me, you know, in much of the Midwest where it is, it's pretty flat.

You get some hills. But, boy, I mean, so when we get a big snow here, you know, you're talking six, eight, and then, of course, you know, noteworthy. So you're talking about a foot 14 inches. But to be talking about, you know, just getting 12 inches in a matter of hours. A matter of hours, and then, you know, another another 12 inches like that's just an everyday thing up in the mountains when you get up into elevation, it is truly incredible how much it snows.

You get up into the Rockies or Sierra Nevada and boy, it it it's remarkable because you could see how much snow in just a short distance, how different it can be. When you go from low elevation to high elevation, you get into those colder temperatures and the snow just just piles up. It is, you know, some really challenging weather forecasts out there, some really, really tight gradients on the snowfall forecasts.

Now, forecasting snow is always a challenge, but when you're forecasting the mountains and trying to predict and wrap your mind about forecasting, you know, five feet of snow making a forecast for that and then another system coming in right behind it. And so, you know, to Donnie and those crews, I cannot believe how busy they were this winter.

But it's important work, too. I mean, gosh, you know, all the people that are being impacted and, you know, people need to get on with their lives, need to get to school, get to work, but they need help to get to work and get to school. And folks like Bonnie and his crews make it happen. So shout out to them for dealing with one heck of a winter again.

And there's still so much snow sitting on the ground there. I mean, I just pulled up visible satellite images and I'm just looking at at the Sierra right now, just packed with snow, deep white, bright whites on the satellite imagery, all this snow that's just sitting there in the Sierra. And as you mentioned, that's it's melting and the water is high.

So, you know, they have to manage all of that with rising water from the the snow melt. I mean, you were going to talking earlier on, Joe, about how much snow have you seen in the season? The most I've seen is about 100 inches, 110 inches. And that's when I was up at Penn State in the in the early nineties.

And it just a brutal, brutal winter in 93, 94. But that was the last time I'd been through something that one white might call a truly bad winter that was brutally cold, brutally snowy. It wasn't here in Virginia, it was the central mountains of Pennsylvania, although you could get you can you get over 100 inches of snow in Virginia and some of the mountains.

And, you know, I think you might be able to pull it off in far northwestern Virginia in the higher elevations in Frederick County or maybe in the in the very high elevations of deeper southwestern Virginia, our paths, I-77, But even that that's a tough that's a tough nut to crack, as we used to say. Got it. And we certainly hope that they catch a little bit of a break here, hopefully as all this snow melts, you know, they're not going be just as busy closing down roads.

And I know because I mean, I'm sure that, you know, inevitably there's going to be some road closures due to flooding, but we certainly hope it's not going to be a widespread issue and they can relax a little bit. Boy, they they need it after after this winter. Absolutely. All right. Well, I think we're going to wrap it up for this week's episode of the Across the Sky podcast.

We'll be back with you next week. And gosh, it's going to actually be May next week, which sounds kind of crazy. This year is flying by last year. I did not think it flew by this year, but we're going to have a whole bunch of guests for you lined up as we go into May. Of course, we have severe weather season getting into hurricane season two.

That officially begins June 1st in the Atlantic Hurricane Basin. Three of us, we'll keep you updated as we go on over the next couple of weeks. So thanks again for listening to the Across the Sky podcast.