Snowmageddon

I dont think I can get out of the driveway yet. Trying to catch up at work so I can start clearing snow.

Man was that a dang workout! Wind keeps swirling so one minute I was blowing with the wind and the next right into my face. I look like the abominable snowman. Then when I was blowing the paths in the yard Id hit the frozen landmines the dog would leave and come to an abrupt halt. Plus there is literally ice everywhere so that made traction a nightmare in places. Probably going to have to clean the outer edge of the roof off but that will have to wait Im pooped.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Then when I was blowing the paths in the yard Id hit the frozen landmines the dog would leave and come to an abrupt halt.

Haha

Just did my driveway and the 2 older neighbors. Plus we have the damn public side walk side so I did a full block of side walk. The side walk was drifted in from bank to bank. I bet it was 4 ft deep. I had to take 5 passes with the blower in 1st gear. Sure glad I have a 2 stage.

I had so much fun doing my driveway I did the neighbors too.

Had some help with the deck.

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That’s quite the pile there Biggill.

I imagine the rink is going to take me a couple hours.

I spent a few hours this morning blowing my driveway and 3 neighbors driveways. My guess is we had in the 11-12” range overall. Down from some of the earlier predictions, but still plenty. Got to feel for the local deer population. They were just starting to catch a break and now this. Some of the deer on my trail camera were starting to look rough. I’m sure this snow will not help.

whew… got my driveway and walks cleared. Combination of plowing with the Ranger and my old snow blower. Hard to say how much snow we got, it varied so much from one spot to another. Some sections were well over 2 feet deep while others were probably less than a foot. All in all, I’d say we got between 12 and 15 here. Totally agree with the comment about the deer – we have quite a few around the woods by us and groups of 8+ move in together to clean up around our bird feeders.

Here are the updated totals around the area. Looks like the winner is Apple Valley at 20 inches.

https://www.weather.gov/source/crh/snowmap.html?sid=mpx

Taunton got 21. No idea where that even is, never heard of it

CaptainMusky wrote:

Taunton got 21. No idea where that even is, never heard of it

Its out by Marshall. A location in northern Wisconsin recorded 26 inches. That could be partial lake-effect snow though.

My driveway is somewhere under there.

I think we got 12-14

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i’m not sure how anyone could realistically measure this snow with the wind we had. but i’m pretty sure i wont be able to have a fire out back or plant my garden till the 4th of july and that was before this last snow event!!!1

some places i had 4 ft drifts and other places i had no new snow laying!!!!!!

Cavalry just showed up in the nick of time, I was runnin out of booze.

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I guess I can be thankful I’m getting better with my snowblower with the many opportunities I’ve had cause to use it already this winter! I can definitely tell I’m improving with techniques since my first time using it 3 years ago. Moving snow kinda sucks, but at least I’m figuring it out! Time for a

Caught a break on that one EP.The gods are looking out for ya.

WTG Sharon!

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Cavalry just showed up in the nick of time, I was runnin out of booze.

Well I’d really hope that 23 ram would make it through 14 inches of snow. Mine did some impressive work today getting a buried trailer out of the back yard

Fairly long driveway here. It would have been a easier cleanup up if it was early in the season. I am starting to get pretty full where I normally push snow….

News channels had us for 15″ in total which is probably correct. The snowfall itself is not the issue, it is the drifting and wind blowing it bare in some spots and stacking it higher than the hood of the trucks in others. This storm convinced me that we will be planting some sort of wind breaks on the NW side of the property.

yea i got a pile out back. the neighbors have a fenced in yard and it all stopped on top of my garden. i dont think i’ll have a fire out back or plant my garden till the 4th of july!!!!! UFFDA!!!!!!

OG Net_Man wrote:

Fairly long driveway here. It would have been a easier cleanup up if it was early in the season. I am starting to get pretty full where I normally push snow….

Exactly. And buried somewhere in there is previous snow that’s melted a little and re-frozen, making it rock hard but covered up by new fluffy stuff so before you know it you feel like you’re running into concrete.

This winter has been tougher for me in a rural, gravel road setting than any winter in recent memories because of the combination of the individual storms we’ve had this year. Obviously we’ve gotten higher than normal amounts of snow. Then mid-winter we had a minor warmup and the combination of that and almost an inch of rain froze a good chunk of the driveway into a sheet of ice that won’t be going away for awhile. Got stuck 3 times plowing yesterday just from spinning my wheels on ice.

The official measurement so far this winter in the Twin Cities/MSP is 73.5 inches, which is 17th on record. The average is 51 inches. So ya, we’ve blown right past that.

The all time snowiest winter on record in the Twin Cities was in 1983-1984, at 98.6 inches.

There have been a couple times this winter when precipitation fell as rain. Most notably, last Tuesday, 2/14/23, when over an inch of rain fell. Had that been snow, we may be quite a bit closer to the record.

gimruis wrote:

There have been a couple times this winter when precipitation fell as rain. Most notably, last Tuesday, 2/14/23, when over an inch of rain fell. Had that been snow, we may be quite a bit closer to the record.

Yeah the typical 10:1 ratio would put it in the 80’s already
Lets go for the record!

John Dee’s seasonal forecast called for a slow start to Winter then above average snow starting mid December through End of March. Seems to be trending exactly that way. We did have a decent snow in November that never melted, but there was quite a time in there with nothing.

CaptainMusky wrote:

but there was quite a time in there with nothing

And until the snowstorm this past week, we did not have any measurable snowfall greater than an inch since Jan 27. The entire month of February was void of any real snow until 3 days ago.

I do not personally believe the Apple Valley 20″. Everywhere else nearby is mostly saying 12-16. If real, the wind must have stopped there over the top of their measurement locations.

One TV channel had a guy in Apple Valley yesterday afternoon. AV did not look much different than my area which had between 10 – 12.

Oh well. Winter marches on.

Fast melt will certainly recharge ponds and lakes.

There isnt much frost so when the melt starts it will soak in pretty quick which is good. The drought scenario we had last year should be gone. We were sitting pretty this time last year and then it went pear shaped.