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[Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>]

So far, we have not changed enough to have "open winters". I hear that term used around here but I guess it's relative. A year with more than one major thaw might be considered open.
This year, the snow came in early November and it has stayed. We did have a major January thaw this year. It lasted long enough that areas of bare ground appeared where the wind had swept the snow thin, rather than drifted.
Since then it has been one snow storm after another. In town, the snow banks along the streets are about as tall as me in many places. Another 4 to 6 inches coming tonight. It's very common to have more snow at the end of March than there was at the beginning. In April, it finally goes.

How cold was it this morning? Well, at the airport about 20 miles away, it was 29 below. My yard may have been colder or "warmer". For the answer, it will require me to wade out into the yard (maybe snowshoes) and read the Min/Max thermometer tied to an apple tree. It's on the tree about 4 feet high (at least). The last time I was out there, the bottom of the thermometer was nearly covered by snow. If it hasn't gone under the snow, I bet I could read it with binoculars while I stand in the low snow where the wind sweeps around the corner of the house. I'll get back to you (all).

Steve
Oh, I need to put on the snow shoes anyway. I have to go out and loosen up the snow (again) around 3 young plum trees. If the snow crusts, then slumps, the little trunks will be kinked like and accordion, broken in multiple places. (You can guess how I know that.)


Road's End Farm wrote:

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If we ever again get here what I used to think of as a "normal" winter, people are going to be screaming all over the place; they've mostly gotten used to what we used to call an "open" winter, that is, one with little or no snow on the ground most of the time.

The precipitation that I have expected to arrive as snow has been arriving as rain; not just this year, but in a number of recent years. We've had primarily rain, with a smaller amount of snow, in November, December, January, and February of this year so far (and not much of anything, in January). November used to be a tossup; December through February used to, most years, be snow covered except for a "January thaw" which would last a few days only.

I am, admittedly, going by my memory rather than by looking up weather records. My memory involves being outside in vineyards a lot in the winter, though.

While I don't mind not having to shovel, the snowpack we used to get had two major advantages: one, as it melted slowly in the spring, it filled up the groundwater supplies better (much of this winter's rain has fallen on ground at least partially frozen, and runs off downhill to the lake); two, it provided protection to lowgrowing perennials etc. by covering them, and some protection to trees by keeping the roots at a more consistent temperature.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly

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