GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — There are no signs of spring yet, just more snow covering the grounds across the West Michigan area. It forced more than 200 schools to close Friday morning.

The Kent County Road Commission worked throughout the night and into the morning. Its focus is scraping the snow from roads and highways.

“Last night after midnight, they (snow plow truck drivers) saw snow rates of over 2 inches an hour. We saw a lot of heavy snow coming down quickly,” KCRC Deputy Managing Director of Operations Jerry Byrne said. “Mother nature is really going to help us out today.”

Conditions have greatly improved since the early morning hours on Friday. However, there were several reports of crashes and slide-offs.

Areas across Grand Rapids have reported anywhere between 6 to 12 inches of snow.

According to Storm Team 8 meteorologists, the additional snow totals for this month make this the seventh snowiest winter in the city’s history.

So far, it’s not impacting the KCRC’s budget, as Byrne calls the conditions “ideal.”

“These are actually better for the budget, better for the amount of salt we use because we can mechanically remove all but that last quarter inch,” Byrne said. “It’s much cheaper to deal with 6 to 8 inches in one snow storm than 6 to 8 one-inch snow storms.”

Byrne added his crews would begin to remove snow from neighborhood streets at least once sometime Friday.