When almost dusk and light turns grey, potholes greedily grasp their prey. Axles, tires, paint are theirs, once you've trespassed in their lairs.

That quippy piece of poetry — despite being written by United Kingdom resident and Twitter user Stuart Ellison-Smith — still encapsulates the odious nature of the miniature craters that crop up in neighborhoods throughout the Twin Cities seemingly overnight. The smaller cracks can be avoided through a professionally-executed swerve maneuver, but some chasms are so big they leave us no choice but to hold our breath, brace for impact, and hope for the best.

You count yourself lucky if your tires live to see another day, even as you make a mental note to schedule a wheel realignment with the local auto mechanic. It's a minor miracle if your car still has all four of its hubcaps by the end of the spring. Street corners are littered with the things by late march.

"I hit a pothole, car went lame, not to blame, made a claim, nothing came, crying shame I hit a pothole." - Karen Tolhurst, Twitter So why is it so hard for municipalities to fix potholes, especially in Minnesota? The answer — like the answer to many questions posed in the Land of 10,000 Lakes — is the state's cold weather. Temperatures fluctuate between freezing and above-freezing throughout March and April. Violent temperature swings are asphalt's kryptonite.

When temperatures warm during the day, water from melted snow and ice seep below the road's surface. Temperatures drop overnight and the water freezes and cracks the road. When the next warmup happens, vehicle traffic over the cracks create a hole (if not a canyon).

The months of salt and winter plowing don't exactly help roads either.

To make matters worse, the type of asphalt mix needed to fix potholes this time of year — "cold mix"— is "very temporary," Saint Paul spokesperson Lisa Hiebert told Patch. "A lot of people could easily think that the potholes are being ignored, when in reality, they could be put in one day and depending on the weather conditions and traffic, could pop out that next day," Hiebert added.