At What Temperature Does Salt Not Work On Roads. However as the temperature falls below 10-15 degrees salt loses its. If the temperature of the roadway is lower than about 15 degrees F - 9 C the salt wont have any effect on the ice.
2 Sustained bitterly cold temperatures are fairly rare for much of the country so in case that happens to you and all you have is salt to melt ice what can you do. That will instantly start melting the snow and once some traffic drives on it it will trigger the salt and it will start meltinghad to do that here yesterday and melt off a stubborn lot. The higher the concentration of salt the lower the temperature at which freezing will occur.
The general idea is to get the rock salt wet as it leaves the plow truck.
This not only jump-starts the freezing temperature reduction process and thus gets the salt working more quickly but it also helps the rock salt stay on the road after it is spread. If the temperature of the roadway is lower than about 15 degrees F - 9 C the salt wont have any effect on the ice. However if temperatures are in the 15-25 range and its daylight road salt can still work pretty well. In the highway deicing world the practical working temperature of salt is generally considered to be above 15 0 F or even 20 0 F.
