Yellowknife (Feb 11/05) - If you feel you have been shovelling too much snow this year, you are indeed correct.

Yellowknife had 35cm of snowfall in January alone, according to Yvonne Bilan-Wallace of Environment Canada in Edmonton. That's almost double the average snowfall for the month, which is 18.8cm.

"You are running quite a bit above normal for January," Bilan-Wallace said.

A main reason for the excess amount of white stuff is that the jet stream is further north than usual, she said.

Bilan-Wallace said January usually has an average temperature of -26.8C, but this year it was -21.9C.

"That's fairly significant," Bilan-Wallace said.

Dennis Althouse, superintendent of the city's public works department, said an extra truck has been contracted for snow removal this year.

The crews are working overtime and Althouse said the department expects to go over-budget, although he did not know to what extent.

"We're working on a calculation right now. At the beginning of January it wasn't that bad, but it increased towards the end of the month."

Althouse said about 500 metres of snow is removed each day to keep ahead of the snowfall.

Currently, five trucks work each night removing snow from the city's streets. The snow is disposed of in Kam Lake and near the dump.