As February begins slipping toward March, hardware stores normally begin replacing snow blowers and melting salt with shipments of lawn mowers and fertilizer.

But this winter has not been normal.

"People are usually thinking spring by now," said Tom Grill, owner of Gus Bock's Ace Hardware in Munster. "It's been a crazy year."

With the region's to-date snowfall already toppling last year's 14.5-inch season's total, shoppers have made it a banner season for snow blowers, snow shovels and ice-melting salt.

"Sales are way up on that stuff," Grill said. "We've sold 35 more snow blowers than last year and we just got more in last week. I sold another one yesterday. The guy said he was tired of shoveling."

The Toro Co. normally switches from snow blower to lawn mower production in December for shipment in February, but this winter the company has retained snow blower production for longer period because of high nationwide demand, Grill said.

For January, the store's sales of ice-melt products doubled compared to January 2007, Grill said.

"We sold 400 bags more," he said.

Darrell Sills, manager of Home Depot in Hobart, said his store sold out its inventory of between 300 and 400 snow blowers in early December.

"The weather has been good to us," he said. "There's not a lot of margin on power tools, but they bring people in and drive sales."

The store normally has a couple of hundred snow shovels in stock at the end of the season. This year, the stock in snow shovels is at a minimum, Sills said.

This winter has been much better than last year for winter seasonal merchandise, agreed Jeff Bunge, manager of True Value Hardware in Cedar Lake.

"Most of the (snow blower) models we stock are out of stock for the season," he said. "We don't stock a whole lot of them normally, but what we had, we sold. Their sales depend on the season. Sometimes we sell out and sometime they stay in stock for a couple of winters."

True Value also has sold "a lot more" ice-melting salt than normal, Bunge said.

"The only problem I had getting it was early on in the season when there was a real rush," he said. "Shovels have been selling very well, even now. People are wearing them out."