California Snow Plow Tracker and Road Conditions

Q: Where can I see where the plows are in California?

Caltrans calls it Snow Plows, and it runs at https://quickmap.dot.ca.gov/. Caltrans describes it this way: "Snow plow markers show the approximate real-time location of Caltrans snow removal equipment during winter operations."

Trucks on the map

What the state publishes

Live truck positions

Caltrans QuickMap

The map

Caltrans, California Department of Transportation

17

Words on the map

each one defined by the state

Yes

Roadside cameras

on the same map, pointed at the road itself

The answer

Where the plows are in California

Trucks on the map

Caltrans publishes where its plows are on Caltrans QuickMap.

A reader can see which roads have a truck on them right now. Whether one has already been past is a separate question the layer may or may not answer.

What the state calls it: Snow Plows
Where it lives: Caltrans QuickMap
How often it updates: Caltrans publishes an update interval for the Chain Controls layer, which it says is updated every minute and reaches the map within one to five minutes, but states none for the plow markers.
By phone: 1-800-427-7623

Open Snow Plows

Caltrans describes it in its own words, from QuickMap FAQs, California Department of Transportation, read September 23, 2026.

Snow plow markers show the approximate real-time location of Caltrans snow removal equipment during winter operations.

QuickMap FAQs, California Department of Transportation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

The map

What Caltrans QuickMap shows

Caltrans QuickMap carries traffic cameras and a phone line at 1-800-427-7623. Caltrans describes it this way: "QuickMap displays real-time traffic information layered on a Google Map, including traffic speed, lane and full closures, CHP incidents, Caltrans highway information, changeable message signs, camera snapshots, chain control requirements, and commercial vehicle resources."

Conditions on any state map are reported rather than measured. A plow operator or a trooper enters what they saw, and the map carries it until somebody enters something else, so a colour is a description of the road a while ago on the stretch the person was looking at.

California drivers get QuickMap, which carries a Snow Plows layer showing roughly where Caltrans snow removal equipment is during winter operations, alongside a seventeen code chain control legend that runs from R-0 to a full RC closure.

The map: Caltrans QuickMap
Cameras: Roadside cameras
Phone line: 1-800-427-7623

Caltrans QuickMap, California Department of Transportation

QuickMap displays real-time traffic information layered on a Google Map, including traffic speed, lane and full closures, CHP incidents, Caltrans highway information, changeable message signs, camera snapshots, chain control requirements, and commercial vehicle resources.

QuickMap FAQs, California Department of Transportation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

The words

What California calls each state of a road

Caltrans runs 17 steps on Caltrans QuickMap, from ESC to W. Caltrans publishes a definition beside them.

These are California’s words and they stop at the state line. There is no national scale: the 33 states that publish a legend use 166 different labels between them, and only 17 publish what their own labels mean. A phrase that means one thing here means something else, or nothing, one state over.

Caltrans’s own labels, in the order Caltrans lists them. The second column is the state’s own definition.
What the map says	What Caltrans says it means
ESC	The CHP is escorting all traffic due to weather conditions.
HT	All traffic is being held at the chain control check point due to incidents or weather related conditions.
MAX	Truck chain requirements are maximum for all trucks.
MIN	Truck chain requirements are minimum for all trucks.
R-0	There are no chain restrictions at this time.
R-1	Chains are required on all vehicles except passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks under 6,000 pounds gross weight and equipped with snow tires on at least two drive wheels. Chains must be carried by vehicles using snow tires. All vehicles towing trailers must have chains on one drive axle. Trailers with brakes must have chains on at least one axle.
R-1M	Trucks & vehicles pulling trailers use R-1 restrictions.
R-2	Chains or traction devices are required on all vehicles except four wheel/ all wheel drive vehicles with snow-tread tires on all four wheels. (Four wheel/all wheel drive vehicles must carry traction devices in chain control areas.)
R-3	Chains or traction devices are required on all vehicles, no exceptions.
RC	Currently the road is closed due to incidents or weather related conditions.
TH	All truck trailer combinations are being held at the chain control camper due to incidents or weather related conditions.
TS	All trucks must stop at the chain check point; Caltrans is currently screening for chains. Drivers must have maximum chains in their possession in order to proceed. Trucks without chains will be turned around. Permit loads are prohibited over the summit.
TTA	All truck trailer combinations are being turned around at the chain control camper due to traction problems over Donner Summit.
TTS	All single axle drive trucks pulling a trailer are being turned around at the chain control camper due to traction problems over Donner Summit.
TTSD	All single axle drive trucks pulling a set of doubles are being turned around at the chain control camper due to traction problems over Donner Summit.
VM	A traffic control is in effect to meter vehicles at the chain check point in order to reduce traffic congestion in the mountain areas.
W	No restrictions - watch for snow on pavement.

Read from Caltrans’s own legend on September 23, 2026.

When a road shuts

Who closes a road in California

Caltrans closes state highways and draws them on QuickMap as an Active Full Closure, and inside the chain control vocabulary a closed road is RC; the California Highway Patrol reports the incidents and, under ESC, escorts traffic through.

Currently the road is closed due to incidents or weather related conditions.

QuickMap FAQs, California Department of Transportation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

A closure is a different thing from a bad condition, and it is the one entry on the map that carries the force of law behind it. Driving past a closure device is an offence in most states and a rescue bill in several. The map is where the closure is published.

A red and white striped gate padlocked shut across a two lane forest highway with a ROAD CLOSED sign at its centre, photographed at road level along the wet double yellow line — A seasonal gate shut across a state highway, with no snow on the ground yet. Closures like this one go on by the calendar rather than by the storm, and a driver who checks the map in November finds the road already gone. That is the quietest and most useful thing these maps do, and it happens weeks before anybody looks for a plow. “The gates are closed (49097728041)”, Oregon Department of Transportation, CC BY 2.0

California snow plow tracker questions

Does California have a snow plow tracker?

Where can I see where the plows are in California?

What is Caltrans QuickMap?

Caltrans QuickMap is California Department of Transportation's own travel information service. Caltrans QuickMap carries traffic cameras and a phone line at 1-800-427-7623. Caltrans describes it this way: "QuickMap displays real-time traffic information layered on a Google Map, including traffic speed, lane and full closures, CHP incidents, Caltrans highway information, changeable message signs, camera snapshots, chain control requirements, and commercial vehicle resources."

What do the road condition colours mean in California?

Who closes a road in California?

A plow truck seen from behind in heavy snowfall casting a wide plume of snow off the left shoulder of an interstate, with one dark treated lane running away to the right — The same event from behind: the truck throwing its wing load onto the shoulder, and beside it the dark strip of lane it has already been down. That contrast between the wet black lane and the white one is the physical thing a road map is reporting when it changes a segment from snow covered to wet, and it is why the colour on the map can be right and the road can still be slick. “Snowplow on Interstate 5 in Everett, Washington”, SounderBruce, CC BY-SA 4.0

Plow trackers in other states

California studded tire datesWhen studs are legal on California roads, and the penalty when they are not.Mountain pass conditionsThe passes that close, and what each state posts when they do.Studded tire laws by stateThe dates studs are legal, state by state.Lake effect snowWhere the bands set up and what they do to a commute.Plow trackers in every stateWhich states show the trucks, which show only the roads, and what their legends say.

California read September 23, 2026 from QuickMap FAQs, California Department of Transportation, linked above. Departments replace these services between seasons and a layer that ran last winter may not run this one, so Caltrans’s own page is the one that governs. Conditions shown on it are reported by people and lag the road. Every state is on the snow plow tracker hub.