As spring blooms, building managers everywhere are looking back on the challenges they faced over a long, cold winter. The “Polar Vortex” was one of many cold snaps that brought the U.S. to unusually chilling temperatures. With such extreme weather, building and property managers spent the winter season doing everything they could to keep commercial buildings running smoothly.

To help plan for the variable weather, Bill Thurmes, a property manager in St. Paul, Minn., looked at winter patterns for the past five seasons to come up with an average. He then adapted energy costs accordingly to balance the heat of a building . Bill noted, however, that few could have predicted this winter’s mix of intense cold and heavy snowfall.

The key to plan for weather-related challenges throughout the year is preparation and using tools to your advantage. Web-based tools can help building managers optimize building operation to meet tenant needs and energy consumption goals, utilizing alarm functions that alert the property manager if temperatures fall outside of desired levels. These can be especially helpful in new buildings that have not yet experienced extreme temperatures.

With such tools in place, building and property managers everywhere will be saying next winter, “we’re ready for you, ‘Polar Vortex’.”