Denver Public Works said it will not plow the city’s residential streets after Wednesday’s blizzard because conditions do not meet criteria for deployment.

Nancy Kuhn, spokeswoman for DPW, also said the heavy, wet snow that fell across the metro area is not what Denver’s lighter snowplow vehicles — light trucks — were designed to clear.

“Our (residential) plows are not equipped to handle this kind of snow,” she said.

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The city has two kinds of snowplow trucks — the light ones used for residential streets and bigger ones meant to plow arterial routes.

Kuhn said the decision not to deploy residential plows came after “careful consideration.”

The city’s residential snowplow program, enacted about a decade ago, also only spans from Nov. 15 to March 15. Residential plows are dispatched when more than a foot of snow falls in the city and is followed by prolonged cold.

Kuhn said that, in part, since temperatures are expected to warm up, the plows will not be deployed.

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The residential plow program is only meant to shave off the very top few inches of snowpack to prevent the deep rutting that occurs when snow freezes, rendering the street undrivable, the city says.

“We consider deploying this program to be an emergency measure only used under specific criteria because it employs such expensive and extensive resources,” according to DPW’s description of the program. “Because of these reasons, the residential plows do not deploy every time snow falls.”

The National Weather Service reported more than 19 inches of snow fell in Denver on Wednesday.

The city’s large plows are out Thursday addressing trouble spots.

Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul