The most remarkable thing about this last snow storm on Monday is probably the fact I almost didn’t write about it. After this punishing winter of snow removal, yet another storm didn’t seem worthy of taking the time to whine. … Continue reading →…Continue Reading Some snow
Some of our winter weather is controlled by a weather oscilliation know as the North Atlantic Oscilliation, or NAO. This is defined by the difference in atmospheric pressure between an area above Iceland and above the Azores. Ordinarily, low pressure in the winter sits over Iceland, and high pressure over the Azores, and this creates […]…Continue Reading This Winter, explained.
There is a lot more to snow sculpting than meets the eye. Our department does quite a few things, but probably one of the most unusual is making giant blocks of snow for the annual Winter Carnival snow sculpture contest. Not this year, obviously, but some years the primary ingredient can be a little tricky. I’ve heard […]…Continue Reading Winter Carnival-Snow Sculptures
A couple of storms ago, I caught myself absentmindedly sticking our most important snow fighting tool into my pocket, and it occurred to me I’d left it out of the list of techniques and equipment I’ve written about in the past. Yes, for some storms, the most important tool in our kit seems to be the lowly putty knife. […]…Continue Reading Putty Knives
Luther Tenny (Facilities Snow Guru, and master of the Snow Plan) keeps much better track of snow storms than I. The weather station down at the track records liquid precipitation year round, thanks to a small heater melting snow in the rain guage. This has recorded .91″ so far in January, compared to 1.35″ to […]…Continue Reading Snow Days
I had hoped that by this time in December, I would be sharing new ski touring adventures. While there is some cross country skiing to be enjoyed, the cover is a little too thin to get out of well-groomed fields and into the more uneven terrain of the woods. That said, I have no objection […]…Continue Reading Snowy Scenic Sauntering on a Sunny (Almost) Solstice Sunday
We’ve had quite the snow week, even though it rapidly disappeared in the rain Sunday. I’ve written about how we remove snow in the past, it’s one of my favorite posts. And what I said certainly still holds true, that a job well done means that no one really noticed we did anything at all. […]…Continue Reading Magic (Salt)