SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (ABC4) – UDOT crews stayed busy throughout the month of December as Utah’s winter started strong with heavy snow across the Beehive State.

According to UDOT, snowplow crews plowed 648,187 miles of roads, taking a cumulative total of 26,732 hours. It was an undertaking that UDOT said is enough miles to plow the entirety of I-15 from Tremonton, just north of Brigham City, to St. George in Southern Utah 1,737 times.

“We are incredibly grateful for the men and women on our team who stay up late and get up early to make the roads safer for everyone else,” UDOT said.

According to the National Weather Service, Salt Lake City alone received 22.6 inches of snow throughout December, making it the third snowiest December since 2003. Provo received 19.5 inches of snow and areas like Logan received 17.2 inches.

Southern Utah had its fair share of snow as well, with Bluff reporting trace amounts of snow in December while Kanab received 9.5 inches throughout the month.

The heavy snowfall has done more than just kept UDOT crews busy, however. According to the Utah Division of Water Resources, The Great Salt Lake has risen a full 12 inches since it reached a historic low in early November 2022.

“Experts are also working to understand how the causeway breach modification of last summer might be impacting the quick rise in lake levels,” the Division of Water Resources said in a tweet. “For context, the lake hardly rose a foot all of last year.”

Crews across the board have continued to be busy throughout the start of the new year. While still there is still more to go to match December, January’s storms have brought Salt Lake roughly 6.7 inches of snowfall so far, and ABC4’s Weather Team says there is still more chances of snow to come.

With more chances for snow on the horizon, UDOT is asking the public to show their appreciation for snow crews by giving them room to work as January shapes up to be similarly busy.