Storm Watch
Durham Region snow plow tracker, and when your street gets cleared.
Durham Region snow plow tracker links for every town, and the Environment Canada alert in effect now.
- Every town's official tracker, in one place
- The live Environment Canada alert, quoted
- Northline clears at 3 cm measured
See all three memberships and what each one covers
Green in summer. Clear in winter.
Your town, their plow
Every Durham municipality's own snow plow tracker
We do not forecast the weather and we do not run the city plow. This page tells you who does, and what happens at your own driveway. Your street is cleared by your town, not by us, and every one of them publishes what its crews are doing. These are their pages, not ours. Two of them are live instruments rather than a policy page, and those two are worth a bookmark before the first storm.
| Town | Their own tracker or winter page | Northline there |
|---|---|---|
| Oshawa | Snow clearing activity report A live report of which road class the crews are working on right now. | What we do there |
| Pickering | Winter operations map A live map of the winter operations across the city. | What we do there |
| Whitby | Snow clearing The clearing order and the town's own windrow assistance service. | What we do there |
| Ajax | Winter roads maintenance The town's road priority order and its winter service standards. | What we do there |
| Clarington, including Bowmanville, Courtice and Newcastle | Snow clearing and winter maintenance The municipality's clearing order and its sidewalk rules. | What we do there |
| Durham Region, the regional roads | Regional road maintenance Taunton, Simcoe, Brock and the other regional roads are the Region's, not the town's. | What we do there |
Links open on each municipality's own website. Northline has no control over what they publish or when they update it.
Why your street is still not plowed, and why there is a ridge at the end of it
The order is not decided by your town on the night. It is set by Ontario's Minimum Maintenance Standards, and it is the same in every municipality in Durham.
- Arterials and bus routes first, while it is still snowing. The provincial clock starts on those roads the moment accumulation begins, so they are cleared during the storm rather than after it.
- Collector roads next. The ones that carry you from your subdivision to the arterial.
- Residential streets once the snowfall has ENDED. This is the part that surprises people. Your street is not late. It is scheduled after the snow stops, which on a long storm can be the following afternoon.
- And the plow leaves the windrow behind it. The blade carries snow along the street and drops it across every driveway apron it passes. It is the heaviest and iciest snow of the storm, it lands on a driveway you have usually just finished clearing, and in every Durham municipality removing it is the homeowner's job.
The windrow is the part Northline takes, on every tier
Gold and Platinum have the whole driveway cleared, windrow included, to the road edge. On Silver you clear your own driveway and we take the windrow off the apron, full width, by 5 PM, after every storm we run. It is the part that makes people give up, and it is included rather than charged per storm.
Who is responsible for the windrow in each Durham town, by by-law
Several Durham municipalities run their own windrow clearing assistance for seniors and residents with disabilities, at no charge or at a small seasonal fee, and the town pages above are where to apply. If you qualify for your town's program, take it. It is your own tax money and it is the cheapest answer available to you.
Questions people ask during a storm
When will my street be plowed in Oshawa?
Oshawa publishes a live snow clearing activity report that tells you which class of road the crews are on right now, and it is linked at the top of this page. The order is set by the province, not by the city: arterials and bus routes are cleared first, on a clock that starts while the snow is still falling, and residential streets are cleared once the snowfall has ended. That is why your street can still be untouched three hours after you have watched a plow go past the end of it.
Does Northline have its own plow tracker?
No, and this page does not pretend to. Northline runs one truck on a member route and owns no municipal plow and no public GPS feed. What this page does is put every town's own official tracker in one place, beside the Environment Canada alert in effect for Pickering, Oshawa and southern Durham Region, so you are not hunting six different municipal websites at six in the morning.
Is there a snow warning in Durham Region right now?
The panel at the top of this page reads Environment Canada's own feed for the Pickering, Oshawa and southern Durham Region forecast area and quotes it word for word, with a link to the alert on their site. It is refreshed every ten minutes. If it says no alert is in effect, that is Environment Canada saying so, not Northline.
Why is there a ridge of snow across the end of my driveway after I cleared it?
That ridge is the municipal windrow. When the plow clears your residential street it carries the snow along the blade and deposits it across every driveway apron it passes, which is usually the heaviest and iciest snow of the whole storm. Clearing it is the homeowner's responsibility in every Durham municipality. Northline takes it off every member's driveway, on every tier including Silver, after every storm we run.
Does Northline clear on the forecast?
No. The route runs on measured accumulation, not on what the forecast said. Once 3 cm has actually fallen the residential route runs automatically, and nobody has to call or book. Below 3 cm it is salt and the walkway, not the blade. The commercial contract is a different product with a 5 cm trigger and its own forecast dispatch, and the two are never mixed.
How early is my driveway cleared after an overnight storm?
Platinum members are sequenced first, against a 6:30 AM target. Gold follows against a 7 AM target. Both are targets after overnight snow and never guarantees, because nobody can promise a clock time against a storm that is still falling. Silver runs on a separate daytime clock: the windrow pass goes out the same day the member route runs, after the municipal plow has been through, and it is cleared by 5 PM.
Get a fixed monthly price for your property
Send me the address and I'll send you a real number the same day, Monday to Saturday. I price what is actually on the property, and if a membership is not good value for yours I'll say so.
Green in summer. Clear in winter.