Most everyone who reads this blog knows that we have been getting a ton of snow this season. The chart below says we’ve had 412 inches so far. That’s enough snow to cover my home. Luckily it didn’t all fall at once!
I’ve lived in mountain towns for 30 years. There have been three winters like this that I have experienced. This winter is definitely the biggest! It’s really good to see it snow almost every day, and after awhile, it’s hard to navigate emotions centered around more of it.
For the Steamboat Pilot article with this chart, visit here.
In January, the biggest month of the season, we saw snow all the time. It was rare that we would see the asphalt of the highways and county roads. There were days that we would move snow three times off of our driveway. I suspect I moved 150 inches of snow off my driveway in January.
When it snows this much, it takes over your life. Not only does a person have to care for their home in regard to snow removal and where it’s going to go when the piles nearby are already five feet, it’s good to include the time it now takes to get from point A to point B.
Being a seasoned winter driver, this isn’t too intimidating. What is intimidating is estimating time of travel. Sometimes the estimation is right on. And sometimes you get stuck behind a snowplow truck. This is really slow going, especially when they are two wide. They move at their own pace. And the other troublesome driver is the one visiting from another place. Going to an epic ski destination area is awesome, but driving on snow packed roads or navigating around 12 foot piles of snow can be problematic. This causes traffic to slow down considerably.
Now we are at the end of Winter, beginning of Spring. We have had some skiffs of snow over the past week and today we are in for another round of deeper snow. Some predictions indicate eight to ten inches will fall in the valley over the next 36 hours. At this time of year, it’s always a crapshoot if these predictions will pan out. One thing I’ve learned over the winters here is that if the forecaster says 30% chance, those are good odds!