Yesterday's balmy, near-80s temperature prompted a return to shorts and flip-flops for a lot of people.

But when it's your job to think ahead, you have to ignore the dandelions blooming in your yard and think about ice and snow.

The Lake Saint Louis Department of Public Works recently sent out a press release to let the public know about a new tool in their winter-weather arsenal.

The city has completed construction of a beet juice storage tank at the public works facility. Beet juice—a by-product of sugar production—added to rock salt or salt brine lowers the effective temperature of salt, reduces the amount of salt needed, and reduces the corrosive effects of salt.

Derek Koestel, Lake Saint Louis' Director of Public Works, told Patch that the beet juice would look brown on the streets but that the only place that one might experience an odor would be at the holding tank at Public Works.

While Lake Saint Louis is forging ahead with this new environmentally-friendly solution to melting snow and ice, Wentzville is stocking up on the tried-and true—salt.

Wentzville's Interim Director of Public Works, Doug Lee, told Patch that his department was fully stocked with salt and ready for winter snow and ice.

So now, as the song says, "let it snow. . ."