Enough Already!

This winter has just gone on way too long. But at last things are looking up here in this howling wilderness to which Providence hath brought us. The temperature actually stayed above freezing over the entire period of the last 24 hours, which I think is the first time we've had that so far this year.

We had way more snow this year than usual, somewhere between 70 and 80 inches (or between about 175-200 cm for you overseas readers). The average in this area is around 22 inches. Most of that fell during a four-week period in January. Usually we have a weather phenomenon called the "January thaw", a period of around a week or so when the temperature gets up above freezing during the day and a fair amount of the snow that's accumulated up to that point melts away before it turns cold and snowy again. This year we didn't have that, though, so between the substantial snowfall and the consistently cold temperatures, we ended up with huge piles of snow everywhere that nobody quite knew what to do with.

Although the major roads were mostly free, driving in residential neighborhoods became something of a challenge because the plows can only pile it up to a certain height. The usable surface in my own neighborhood got narrower and narrower until in most places it was only barely possible for two cars to pass each other.

Pass Me If You Can

The sidewalks weren't much better. I live in a neighborhood in which most (though unfortunately not all) of the residents are pretty good about clearing the sidewalks in front of their houses. It's hard to get every last bit of it off with a shovel or snowblower, especially if you are clearing it after people have walked on it and compacted it onto the surface of the sidewalk. Most of the sidewalks on our street are asphalt, so if you get most of it off, when the sun comes out subsequently, even on a cold day it will warm the asphalt to the point where most of what remains will melt and evaporate. But there are still many stretches where the snow is repeatedly warmed only enough to become liquid and then freezes again, turning some stretches of sidewalk into a sheet of ice. So there you get to choose whether you want to risk falling on the ice, or whether you would prefer to walk in the street and instead risk getting hit by some unobservant motorist.



Take Your Chances

The more heavily traveled roads in the city were generally cleared to their full width, which in some cases meant bringing in construction equipment to load snow onto dumptrucks and cart it away. Where they took it I don't know. There were discussions about dumping at least some of it into the ocean; usually that's prohibited because the snow cleared from roads and parking lots tends to be full of road salt, motor oil and all manner of other flotsam and jetsam, but I think this year there may have been some exceptions made. I wrote previously about how the snow looks nice at first, but especially in the more heavily-traveled areas soon turns into grey-black piles that you get pretty tired of looking at. Well, this year we've been getting to enjoy that phenomenon even longer than usual. Even on those days when the sun comes out it's kind of depressing to walk or drive through that landscape.

Ugly Grey Gunk

Son of Ugly Grey Gunk

Return of the Son of Ugly Grey Gunk

As the snow recedes, it's exposing some of the most enormous potholes I've ever seen. I'm talking over a foot wide and 6–8 inches deep in some cases, and that's no exaggeration. I also wrote previously about how the winter freeze-thaw cycle, paired with the action of the snowplows, tends to wreck the road surfaces around here, but this year it's extreme. I'm guessing it's because there were a lot more plows out plowing a lot more snow than usual this year. But whatever the reason, driving on any of the main roads in this town in the last couple of weeks has been a pretty exciting game of pothole slalom every time.

At least the end is in sight. To measure the approach of spring I need look no further than the end of my driveway. The pile of snow that had accumulated from the series of storms we had in January is slowly receding. Another month and maybe it'll be gone…

February 2: Six Feet High

February 15: I'm Melting!

  

March 6: Land in Sight!