Dive Brief:
- A blizzard closed or limited Midwest trucking operations last week, burying some areas under 8 to 10 inches of snow.
- Estes Express Lines, TForce Freight, Saia, XPO and Midwest Motor Express reported impacts to their operations in several states due to the snowstorm.
- Service was interrupted in Salt Lake City; Rock Springs, Wyoming; Des Moines, Iowa; and Minneapolis, according to various alerts on the companies’ websites.
Dive Insight:
Snowstorms, a perennial wintertime problem for trucking, have continued to present challenges early this year for carriers around the country.
The Midwest blizzard last week left 8 to 10 inches, with a few reports of almost a foot from south central Minnesota through northwest Wisconsin, according to the National Weather Service.
“The combination of snow and wind made many roads impassible,” according to an update from the agency.
Freight rates have also been impacted by road closures and hazardous conditions reducing truck availability and extending transit times, Matthew Javor, carrier procurement manager for Circle Logistics, told Trucking Dive in an email. Together these factors increase costs and risks, he added.
“Parked equipment and elevated demand for essential goods, coupled with tender rejections, further strain capacity. As a result, freight rates surge, even during traditionally slow periods like February,” Javor said.
Snow and other extreme conditions have plagued the trucking industry multiple times in the past six months.
In January, Winter Storm Blair closed roads and halted operations from Kansas to Delaware. That same month, wildfires tore through Southern California, and a pair of hurricanes battered the Southeast late last year.
The disruptions led to a brief spike in rates for an industry mired in a two-year freight recession.
“This has been the strongest February for rates since Covid; so far, March has been much calmer, and we see that rates are falling again,” Javor said.
