Every spring the same pattern plays out on Lansing streets and driveways: a few mild days follow a hard freeze, the snowbanks shrink, and holes open where the pavement looked sound a week earlier. The timing is not bad luck. The NOAA normals for the city's airport station show that freeze-thaw activity peaks in March, and the physics of a thawing subgrade explain why a driveway is weakest just as the snow disappears.
This guide covers what happens under the pavement during that season, how to read a driveway once the melt drains, and how to decide between the three repairs that get confused most often: patching, crack filling and sealing. It ends with a month-by-month calendar keyed to the local frost dates, so repairs happen in the order that lets each one last.
March, not January, is the hard month
Cold alone does not break pavement. What breaks it is crossing the freezing line, because ice is about 9 percent less dense than the water it forms from, so freezing water pushes on whatever holds it, then flows again when it melts. In the airport station's 1991-2020 normals, 131 days a year see the low reach 32 degrees or colder, and on 51 of them the afternoon never gets above 32. That leaves about 80 days on which the temperature crosses the line in both directions. Those crossing days are not spread evenly through winter.
January, the coldest month, averages only 9.5 of them, because much of the month stays frozen day and night. March averages 17.8, the most of any month, because its normal low of 26.0 degrees and normal high of 44.1 straddle freezing on most days of the month. February adds 11.8 and April 8.8, so the three months from February through April carry 38.4 crossing days, nearly half the annual total. The snowpack melts across the same weeks: the station averages 13.8 inches of snow in January, 11.6 in February and 7.0 in March, all of which becomes water on or beside the pavement.
- January: 9.5 freeze-thaw days, 13.8 inches of snow
- February: 11.8 freeze-thaw days, 11.6 inches of snow
- March: 17.8 freeze-thaw days, 7.0 inches of snow
- April: 8.8 freeze-thaw days, 1.9 inches of snow
- November and December: 13.0 and 12.6 freeze-thaw days as winter sets in
Why the ground gives way in a thaw
Pavement Interactive, the engineering reference, describes frost action as two related processes. Frost heave lifts the pavement when water in the soil freezes into ice lenses, and it needs three conditions together: a soil rich in fines, cold that penetrates the ground, and water to feed the growing ice. Thaw weakening follows. As the ice lenses melt from the top down, the released water is trapped above soil that is still frozen, and the subgrade loses much of its stiffness and bearing capacity until it drains.
Lansing's soils supply the fine particles and the water. The Ingham County soil survey maps about 73 percent of the county in associations built around Marlette and Capac loams, formed in loamy glacial till, and the official description of Capac puts its seasonal high water table 15 to 46 centimeters, roughly 6 to 18 inches, below the surface. A driveway base over that ground spends the thaw sitting on wet, weakened soil, and every tire that rolls over it flexes the asphalt more than it would in July. Cracks join up into plates, the plates loosen, and a pothole opens.
Michigan law recognizes the same weakness on public roads. Under MCL 257.722, road agencies may cut maximum axle loads during March, April and May each year, by 25 percent on concrete pavements and by 35 percent on all other types of roads. The City of Lansing's Public Service Department, responsible for 107 miles of major streets and 303 miles of local streets, runs a potholes page where residents can report a hole and locate the ones already reported.
Reading a driveway after the melt drains
The time to inspect is after the thaw water has drained and the surface is dry, which around Lansing usually means after the median last frost of May 2. Looking while the ground is still thawing misjudges the base, since the subgrade stays at its weakest until the released water drains. A useful walk-around sorts every defect into one of three groups, because each group has a different repair.
Surface wear is the first group: a drive that has faded to gray, sheds fine stone and soaks up rain instead of shedding it. That is an aging binder, and it is what sealing addresses. Cracks are the second group: single lines along the lawn edge, at the garage slab, or repeating the pattern of an older pavement beneath an overlay. Those need crack filling before any coating. The third group is structural: potholes, sags that hold water, pavement that flexes under a car, and alligator cracking, the interconnected plates that Pavement Interactive ties to loss of base or subgrade support from poor drainage or spring thaw.
Drainage clues belong on the same list, because they explain where the structural damage came from. A downspout that empties onto the drive, turf that has built up above the pavement edge, or a low spot that ponds for a day after rain will keep feeding water into the base. Fixing those sources is part of the repair, not an extra.
- Gray, porous, shedding stone: surface wear, a sealing job
- Single cracks with firm edges: crack filling first
- Interconnected plates, sags, soft or broken areas: patching
- Water from downspouts, high lawn edges or low spots: drainage work
Patch, fill or seal: matching the repair to the damage
Patching comes first whenever the base has failed, because nothing applied on top will hold over a soft or broken area. Pavement Interactive's repair note for localized fatigue cracking is to remove the cracked pavement, dig out and replace the poor subgrade, improve drainage and patch. On a driveway that means a saw-cut, full-depth patch rather than a shovel of mix in the hole. The patching page explains the difference between cold patch, hot mix, saw-cut and infrared repairs.
Crack filling comes second. SealMaster's guidance is that unfilled cracks let rain and moisture flow through the pavement and erode base materials, ending in potholes, so each open crack is a pothole in the making. Filling them with hot-poured rubberized sealant keeps water out of the base while letting the pavement move through the next winter's crossings.
Sealing comes last, and only on a surface that is structurally sound. Sealer is a thin coat; it slows oxidation and keeps surface water from soaking in, but it does not bridge cracks or hold up a weak base. New patches need to cure before they are coated: SealMaster wants fresh asphalt to sit uncoated for 30 to 60 days at least and Angi suggests up to three months, so a May patch is ready for coating along with the whole drive by July or August. The driveway sealing page covers products and coats.
The order matters more than any product choice. Sealing over a pothole or alligator cracking only changes the color of the damage, and filling cracks in a section that has already lost its base spends material on pavement that has to be cut out anyway.
A Lansing calendar from thaw to first frost
The local frost dates make a workable schedule. March and April are for protection rather than repair: tamp cold patch into any hole that threatens tires, keep heavy trucks and dumpsters off the drive during the months when the state lets road agencies cut axle loads, and photograph the damage. May, after the May 2 median last frost, is for the inspection and for hot-mix and full-depth patching once holes are dry.
June through mid-September is the coating season. Coating wants temperatures that stay at 50 or above through a full day and night, and the station's normal overnight low reads 56.7 degrees in June, 60.6 in July, 59.4 in August and 51.2 in September, while May averages 46.7. September and early October are the time for a second crack-filling pass, before October's 5.2 and November's 13.0 freeze-thaw days begin working water into the pavement. After the October 9 median first frost, coating work is done for the year.
Potholes in the street itself go to whichever agency owns the road: the City of Lansing's Public Service Department for city streets, the Ingham County Road Department for county roads in townships such as Meridian and Delhi, and MDOT for state trunklines such as Grand River Avenue and Saginaw Street through Okemos. Where a hole sits at the joint between the street and a driveway apron, the agency that owns the street is the first call, and any work in its right-of-way needs its permission.
- March to April: holding repairs, no heavy loads, photos
- May: inspection after May 2, hot-mix and full-depth patches
- June to mid-September: crack filling and sealing on warm, dry days
- September to early October: second crack-filling pass
- After October 9: coating season over; plan next year's work
Once the thaw drains, describe the damage and get prices from independent Lansing-area contractors.
Quick Answers
How long does pothole season last around Lansing?
By the NOAA normals, it runs from February through April, when the airport station averages 11.8, 17.8 and 8.8 freeze-thaw days in turn, and it tapers off in May, which averages just 1.1. Michigan's seasonal weight limits cover March, April and May for the same reason, and the median last frost of May 2 marks the practical end, when inspection and permanent patching can begin.
Does sealcoating prevent potholes?
Only indirectly. A sound coat keeps surface water from soaking into an aging, porous drive, which reduces the water available to freeze in the top of the pavement. It does not seal open cracks, which need filling, and it does nothing for water arriving from the sides or from below. Potholes start where water reaches the base, so crack filling and drainage fixes do more to prevent them than the coating itself.
Is a pothole where the driveway meets the street the owner's to fix?
It depends on which side of the line it sits. The street belongs to the road agency, whether that is the City of Lansing, the Ingham County Road Department, MDOT or a city such as East Lansing or DeWitt, and holes in it should be reported to that agency. Work on the apron within the right-of-way, such as cutting or widening it, needs that agency's permission, including East Lansing's right-of-way permit and DeWitt's right-of-way application.
Why does one Lansing driveway break up while the next one holds?
Usually because of what is underneath. A drive over wet Capac loam or a low spot with poorly drained soil sits on a softer base during the thaw than one on well-drained sand and gravel, such as the esker ground around Holt. Base thickness, downspouts and the age of the pavement add to the difference; the city's median home dates to 1959, and old drives may carry overlays that crack along the joints beneath them.
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