Pothole Season Is Back in New Jersey — Here’s Why Winter Wrecks Our Roads

Every spring, baseball players prep for the baseball season with spring training.

A couple months of preparation, warming up arms, and bats, and bodies.

There's no preparation for pothole season, though. One minute we're sailing along, and the next minute, we're hitting all the holes.

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Welcome to Pothole Season in New Jersey!

As temperatures start to rise, and fall and rise, and fall and rise again, potholes come to the surface.

They start forming and all of a sudden they're there, swallowing up your tire, causing damage to your car.

How Do Potholes Form?

Potholes usually need three things to form: water, temperature change, and traffic.

Thanks to regular traffic, small cracks appear in the pavement. Then water or melting snow seeps in. When temperatures are below freezing, the water in the cracks freezes and expands, forcing the pavement apart. When the temperatures rise, the ice goes away, leaving a gap.

As the temperatures rise and fall (as they've been this week), more and more gaps form - or the ones there get bigger. Traffic weakens the pavement, and all of a sudden, a nice size pothole forms.

The weather in New Jersey has been crazy for a few weeks, so expect the potholes to start getting crazy. This could lead to the worst pothole season we've had in years.

What Happens Now?

In a perfect world, once the potholes start popping up, road crews will be out filling them in.

In a perfect world.

In New Jersey, the state's Department of Transportation actually runs a pothole hotline. If you see potholes on state roads and highways, you can report them to 1-800-POTHOLE (1-800-768-4653).

Reporting potholes on state and local roads can be more tricky. Best bet is to try to contact the county or municipality's public works department.

Good Luck, New Jersey, and happy pothole season!