Meet Sleety Pie, Your Michigan Snowplow

Sleety Pie has been a hard-working snowplow for the State of Michigan, focusing on the Southeast Michigan “trunk” roads (aka highways) since 2022.

She was named as part of a Michigan Department of Transportation contest, which received over 15,000 possible snowplow names. She could have been Veruca Salt, like in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Or Great Flakes! But, after some consideration, MDOT decided to go a different direction—Sleety Pie just didn’t seem like that kind of girl.

Sleety joined other famous snowplows on the MDOT team, like Plowy McPLowFace, Plowasaurus Rex and Snowtorious BIG, and has been pulling her weight ever since.

Of course, she takes summers off, but if you want to track her progress—or any of her friends—during the Michigan winter, you can find her icon on the Mi Drive interactive map. The map shows where all the plows are on the roads, so you can tell what conditions the roads will likely be in before leaving your house.

Select the "Maintenance Vehicle" icon in the top left, then zoom in to see the snowplow symbols moving around the map. If you hover over one, you'll see that plow's name and location, and you can click through to get a driver's side view of the road they are working on.

If you have a specific section of highway you are interested in but don't see a plow nearby, you can check the stationary camera views by clicking on the camera icon in the top left and then clicking on the camera symbol closest to where you want to see.

Check out the names of all the other MDOT plows here. Who knows, they may have another contest someday. You should start planning out your suggested plow names now.

Michigan wasn't the first to dream up this contest idea or to have an interactive map. If you want to meet snowplows from other states and countries, there are many opportunities to vicariously experience their snow and snowplow names.

For example, follow Skid Vicious and Sweet Child O’ Brine of the Scotland Gritters (the UK way to say snowplow). Or check out plow progress and current snow levels in Umeå, Sweden, where they plow sidewalks and bike paths first. Or track Taylor Drift and You're Killin' Me Squalls in Minnesota.

If you're looking closer to home, Wayne County also has an interactive map—according to them, they were the first in the state to have one. Sadly, their plows don't have names, so you'll just have to imagine them.

And if you're stuck waiting on the plow, remember you can always check out an e-book or audiobook to while away the time.