Ever wonder how a pothole is formed?
A recipe for potholes
The ingredients of a hard winter provide the perfect recipe for potholes. Snow, ice and rain provide ample moisture and severe cold causes pavement cracking that allows water to seep in, expand and displace paving material. Add sunlight, which creates varying temperatures that keep the damaging freeze/thaw cycle in motion. And finally, warmer spring weather accelerates the freeze/thaw cycle, causing pavement to deteriorate even more quickly.
Birth of a pothole
- Step by step formation process
- Low resolution video clip (324K Windows Media File)
- Medium resolution video clip (1,764K AVI File)
- High resolution video clip (12,626K MPEG File)
Reporting potholes