SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The city of Sioux Falls is experiencing its first significant snowfall of the season.

Sioux Falls has spent months preparing for the season’s first blast of winter weather.

“Our sander trucks, motor graders, making sure they’re ready to go, checking tires. We have to calibrate our sanders to make sure we’re putting out the right amount of material,” Street Operations Manager Dustin Hansen said.

Street Operations Manager Dustin Hansen has a new tool this winter. This flusher truck contains salt brine that hits the streets long before the snow.

“Ahead of the storm we’ll actually go out and apply the salt brine to the streets and you can see it, it’s a pencil stream on the streets and it will dry up fairly quickly,” Hansen said.

“We have the potential to shoot out the side and it will cover about 10 to 12 feet on either side but mostly we just use this lower bar, and it will shoot a pencil stream of salt brine,” Street Maintenance Supervisor Chad Sundvold said.

The solution then lies in wait.

“Once we get the moisture on the streets, whether it’s ice or snow, it’ll actually activate that, give us a little time and keep those streets safe before we can get out there and it also decreases the amount of salt that we actually have to put down,” Hansen said.

This is the salt brine maker, which essentially gives the salt a water bath. It takes about five-ton of salt to make 6,000 gallons of salt brine.

“This is just another tool for us that we can now put down a liquid with less chemical that’s going to create a little bit better driving,” Sundvold said.

The salt brine solution works up to a week after application.

Click HERE to view the city of Sioux Falls Snow Alert Tracker.