Months before the season of “big fish stories” comes the warm-up: a chance to practice hyperbole with potholes.

Except this year, the hype appears all too real.

“I think this year is the worst year I’ve seen,” said Jerry Auge Jr., who’s been Ramsey County’s maintenance engineer for five years but lived in the Twin Cities all his life. “We’ve had some perfect storms.”

One hole at the very east end of Larpenteur Avenue was so big the county had to park a truck in it to make sure no more cars hit it. By the time they arrived, three cars were already idling on the side of the road.

“(The hole) was half the size of a pick-up truck … and 8 inches deep,” Auge said, calling the hole “atypical.”

Added Lisa Hiebert, spokeswoman for St. Paul Public Works, “We’ve got all the right ingredients for the perfect pothole recipe.”

That recipe includes the following: rain, freezing temps, thaw, rinse and repeat.

And along with the thawing and freezing water, there’s been plenty of late-season plowing, Hiebert noted.

A plethora of plowing — especially late in the season, when the roads are warmer and more prone to damage — leads to more potholes.

Auge added that all that moisture and a high frost depth has also led to lots of localized flooding. Now, his crews are split between addressing flooding and applying patch. It’s a losing battle.

“This is the most overtime I’ve ever seen, over the span of the last six weeks,” Auge said.

The city’s asphalt plant opened Wednesday — the first in the state — and business is already booming.

Even so, there’s far less traction than street workers want: rain and moisture makes hot patching problematic.

The current lifespan of a hot patch is only two or three days.

“They’re filling potholes and they’re popping right away,” Hiebert said. “Until it dries up a little bit, where that hot mix will actually hold, we’re not going to be able to gain much ground. … It’s the full-on triage mode right now. It’s going to seem really rough to people.”

The city hasn’t calculated whether current crews will be enough. But county officials know they’ll be short.

Their two patch-truck crews are already working 24 hours a day, Auge said. So for the first time, by Saturday at the latest, he’ll convert another vehicle to work with crews — and rent a fourth as soon as he can.

They were going to buy a new vehicle anyway, but given present conditions, “We can’t wait to purchase, we have to rent,” Auge said.

Chey Eisenman, who’s been driving a taxi or limousine around the Twin Cities for a decade — typically seven days a week in the winter — says, “The potholes that are starting to emerge remind me of the 2010-2011 year, when the Metrodome collapsed. … St. Paul potholes break things on cars that don’t normally break. These streets just can’t take any more of a beating”

Still, “I can’t believe I’m saying this — and it’s the first time I have — I think Minneapolis potholes are actually worse this time. That I-35W project is pushing cars off the highway into the streets.”

Related: Report a St. Paul pothole here

Greg Wax, who’s been service manager at Bobby & Steve’s Auto World off Washington Avenue in Minneapolis for seven years, agreed.

“We’re seeing a huge increase this year. That (I-35W) construction zone is pretty gnarly.”

One pothole cost a customer $2,000, he said, because they needed four new wheels for their all-wheel drive vehicle.

Jena Felsheim, 27, of St. Paul, blew two tires Wednesday on her Mini Cooper on a particularly bad patch of North McKnight Road, near the Sun Ray Shopping Center. Seconds after she pulled off, a large truck pulled in behind her with the exact same problem.

“It was bad before, but not bad to the point where I actually had to worry about it,” said Felsheim, who’s lived in the Twin Cities for nearly two decades. “It does seem like this year is worse than it has been.”

Of particular concern to many St. Paul residents and city officials is Ayd Mill Road, which isn’t slated for a full mill and overlay rehab until 2022. The budget for that is a whopping $3.5 million, more than the city’s current $2.5 million budget for the entire city.

The county has a pothole hot line to report particularly bad crevasses, at 651-266-7100.