Saturday, February 02, 2008

For Those Who Have Been Wondering.......

I have received inquiries as to how much snow we have gotten in Maine this winter. The month of December 2007 was just terrible! Every week it snowed and sometimes twice a week. I believe we captured about 48 inches of the white powdery stuff during that time. In January, we caught an early "January Thaw." Maine gets a "January Thaw" every year, and usually it is well needed to help evaporate or melt snow banks sitting on the ground from October, November and December.

This year's January Thaw lasted almost two weeks. The usual is about 7 days. We are getting smaller amounts of snow now, and I do think and feel that we will have an early Spring in Maine this year. Even though the calendar says "Spring," Maine usually lags behind by at least 6 weeks.

I haven't kept accurate track of the snow amount this winter as I have in previous years (it is too depressing to do so), but I would venture to estimate that we have had about 5-plus feet of snow fall so far. The average snowfall in the foothills this year has been about 6 inches each snow event.
But we honestly cannot complain. We have had much less snowfall than other parts of the country; and it is time for us to have less! Honestly: If we could create a "force field" around Maine, we would not have any snow at all. ALL of our weather streams from other places: either it comes from the west, mid-west, Canada, or the South. Maine, in and of itself, does not generate snow.

Here are a few pictures.

Here is a 'comparison' picture of what the back of my house looks like without snow. Keep your eye on the metal barrel in the yard which stands about 36 inches high.

Here is that same barrel again in the midst of a snowfall.

Again, after one of the snow events...
Snowbank with the barrel in the background.

Snow bank by my car......

Snowbank against the house....
View of my driveway from my livingroom window.....
Neighbor's home next door from my driveway.
Another view of my driveway from my livingroom window. The snowbank is about 3 feet high.
Some Creature walked into the woods while the house was asleep one night....
I don't know what Creature it was. The one cool thing about snowfall is it allows you to see that something did walk across your property when you weren't looking.
Here is a close-up of the tracks which were a bit exaggerated due to the evaporation of snow by the sun.