It depends. It normally doesn’t get that deep overall, but with drifting it can get pretty epic. I’ve seen drifts and plowbanks as high as I am tall pretty regularly. I hear they’ve got it worse up in Rochester and Buffalo, too. The other thing is, I live right near our town’s maintenence depot, where the plows are parked, so I get plowed on a good regular basis. But if you live far from the plows, it can be a while before you get dug out. You can get a couple days’ accumulation where it’d get that deep, easy.
On the Mount Rose Highway up to Lake Tahoe from Reno, there are stakes along the edge of the roadway, eight or nine feet tall, with the top 4-5′ being reflectors. They are there so the giant road-clearing snow throwers don’t drive off the edge.
Yeah, those poles are pretty normal in places where you can expect snow to be ‘hiding’ the road, most often only if there is a possibility of a high fall if you drive off the road 🙂
@ Linux Learner – this year Mt Rose had a total accumulation of over 100 feet – and the ones on the Califoria side went as high as 145 feet . And its starting to melt now . Lake Tahoe is 3 feeet under its’ normal level so that will help a bit – and the resevoirs that feed from the Truckee River that runs to Pyramid Lake are low so they can absorb a fair amount . But feeling is that we could see some serious flooding in a week or two . Thanks to were I live – it won’t bother me im;ess I habe to go to the SE part of Reno]Sparks . those folks got clobbered during the last flood .
I spent part of my childhood (well, adolescence) in Alaska. I would dig snow forts rather than build them. I am 6 feet tall and I didn’t have to make the walls higher than the natural height of the snow.
My little sister jumped off the back porch into a snowdrift and completely disappeared! All I could see was the little pom-pom on the top of her hat, bobbing around as she dug a tunnel through the snow. It was exactly as tall as she was.
Hahaha ya same here paula i’m originally from conneticut so i’m used to the snow but i live in GA now and we get 2 inch of snow the entire city is shut down and good thing too cause people can’t drive for nothing down here even when it’s dry >_<
I’ve lived in a whole bunch of places, so I’ve seen a bit of what you’re talking about. I lived in Calgary, Alberta for a while. Anything less than three feet of snow was just business as usual. Then I moved to California. A little bit of ice one morning caused about six accidents and the whole county pretty much shut down for the day.
Houston, Texas is even worse. We get rainstorms fairly often (especially during the Summer), but everybody STILL forgets how to drive when it rains. Even if they’ve lived here for their entire lives. And snow? If we get freak weather and have a bit of morning frost that melts by 6 AM, the whole state shuts down.
Eh, the Seattle scene for snow is: 2″ to 4″ and the city stops. we get around two weeks of snow yearly…you want snow? the mountains are 30 minutes away- and NO I won’t trade you folks places… ^_^
I just hope the coming winter gives us a break – the 2010-2011 winter had 9 consecutive storms that dumped enough snow to kill my Ariens snow thrower – we had to shovel the last four storms by hand – averaging 12 inches each 🙁
Strange Americans… I live in northern Norway. Less than 3’4″ snow is a surprisingly mild and snowless winter. The record was set April 29th ’97, with 7’10”. 5′ is perfectly normal. And I do not live in the mountains, but by the coast. ^^
I used to spend a lot of vacations at a ranch near a little town in Washington state called Northport, just south of the border to Canada. One November, it snowed over five feet in about 36 hours. We had to fashion some make-shift snowshoes to walk the two miles back to the truck we’d left at the main road. It was quite an experience walking over the barb-wire fences. The snow drifts were much higher. At least whomever plowed the road was nice enough to make sure the truck wasn’t buried.
It was awesome, really, since the snow storm that came through wasn’t a blizzard. Just these huge snowflakes–and a lot of them–slowly falling all day and all night. I’ll always remember that snow fall. It was beautiful and peaceful.
I would have liked to have seen that… I’m from Québec City, myself, so I’ve seen snow before…
I’ve also lived in Toronto, Ontario, for a number of years, and thought their winters were annoying… it would snow a few inches, and would melt in the following days… The temperature would still hover between 0C and -10C, but there was barely any snow… One winter, I could see grass up the side of an overpass all winter… that is just wrong!
When I came back to Québec, I was traveling by bus, and while waiting for the next bus, I was watching some snow being blown off the roofs of the taller buildings, and the first thought that came to my mind was: “Hmm… I missed that…”
I earned a reputation at work of ensuring it snowed in London while I was on holiday skiing. I went almost ten years without seeing snow at home, but there was usually plenty where I was when it did fall there.
The best I saw was in Spain, where the snow was deep enough that on the chair lift up from the village to the pistes, you had to lift your feet up some of the time or you ended up walking, and on the peaks, they had had to dig trenches out for the lifts, as the snow was higher than the tops of pylons carrying the lift wires.
I went back to the same place the next year, and it rained so much, all the snow melted…
I remember in Orlando, back in the 70s, we actually got a dusting. People freaked. They absolutely freaked. They were terrified to drive. Being an old mountain boy, I thought it was funny as hell.
Florida gets a very large number of Canadians “snowbirding”, flying south to vacation in the middle of winter. I don’t doubt my people were there, laughing our asses off as well.
Hell, the last time I went down, locals were actually apologizing that I had my vacation “ruined” by the terrible weather, 65°F (18°C to the rest of the planet). I was out in shorts and a T-shirt having a great time! It was -28°C back home!
*cracks up* SO EFFIN TRUE OH MY GOD
Same thing happens in Chicago too.
…… What is this snow you all speak of?
;-;
Yeah, snow doesn’t REALLY get that high does it? (From lower New Mexico where snow is 1-2 inches at max and often melts by mid-day)
It depends. It normally doesn’t get that deep overall, but with drifting it can get pretty epic. I’ve seen drifts and plowbanks as high as I am tall pretty regularly. I hear they’ve got it worse up in Rochester and Buffalo, too. The other thing is, I live right near our town’s maintenence depot, where the plows are parked, so I get plowed on a good regular basis. But if you live far from the plows, it can be a while before you get dug out. You can get a couple days’ accumulation where it’d get that deep, easy.
On the Mount Rose Highway up to Lake Tahoe from Reno, there are stakes along the edge of the roadway, eight or nine feet tall, with the top 4-5′ being reflectors. They are there so the giant road-clearing snow throwers don’t drive off the edge.
I thought Cleveland was bad, but I don’t think we’ve ever gotten anything like that!
Yeah, those poles are pretty normal in places where you can expect snow to be ‘hiding’ the road, most often only if there is a possibility of a high fall if you drive off the road 🙂
@ Linux Learner – this year Mt Rose had a total accumulation of over 100 feet – and the ones on the Califoria side went as high as 145 feet . And its starting to melt now . Lake Tahoe is 3 feeet under its’ normal level so that will help a bit – and the resevoirs that feed from the Truckee River that runs to Pyramid Lake are low so they can absorb a fair amount . But feeling is that we could see some serious flooding in a week or two . Thanks to were I live – it won’t bother me im;ess I habe to go to the SE part of Reno]Sparks . those folks got clobbered during the last flood .
In New England, they attach metal “antennae” to all the fire hydrants — so fire crews can find them in the winter.
I spent part of my childhood (well, adolescence) in Alaska. I would dig snow forts rather than build them. I am 6 feet tall and I didn’t have to make the walls higher than the natural height of the snow.
I’ve gotten three or four feet of snow before.
My little sister jumped off the back porch into a snowdrift and completely disappeared! All I could see was the little pom-pom on the top of her hat, bobbing around as she dug a tunnel through the snow. It was exactly as tall as she was.
😀
Ditto on those poles if your going down the interstate just on the Idaho-Montana border.
*sigh*
we get 3-4 inches where i live and the city grinds to a halt.
wish we DID get snow like that
we would be able to take winter off ^^
Hahaha ya same here paula i’m originally from conneticut so i’m used to the snow but i live in GA now and we get 2 inch of snow the entire city is shut down and good thing too cause people can’t drive for nothing down here even when it’s dry >_<
I’ve lived in a whole bunch of places, so I’ve seen a bit of what you’re talking about. I lived in Calgary, Alberta for a while. Anything less than three feet of snow was just business as usual. Then I moved to California. A little bit of ice one morning caused about six accidents and the whole county pretty much shut down for the day.
Houston, Texas is even worse. We get rainstorms fairly often (especially during the Summer), but everybody STILL forgets how to drive when it rains. Even if they’ve lived here for their entire lives. And snow? If we get freak weather and have a bit of morning frost that melts by 6 AM, the whole state shuts down.
Eh, the Seattle scene for snow is: 2″ to 4″ and the city stops. we get around two weeks of snow yearly…you want snow? the mountains are 30 minutes away- and NO I won’t trade you folks places… ^_^
I just hope the coming winter gives us a break – the 2010-2011 winter had 9 consecutive storms that dumped enough snow to kill my Ariens snow thrower – we had to shovel the last four storms by hand – averaging 12 inches each 🙁
Strange Americans… I live in northern Norway. Less than 3’4″ snow is a surprisingly mild and snowless winter. The record was set April 29th ’97, with 7’10”. 5′ is perfectly normal. And I do not live in the mountains, but by the coast. ^^
I used to spend a lot of vacations at a ranch near a little town in Washington state called Northport, just south of the border to Canada. One November, it snowed over five feet in about 36 hours. We had to fashion some make-shift snowshoes to walk the two miles back to the truck we’d left at the main road. It was quite an experience walking over the barb-wire fences. The snow drifts were much higher. At least whomever plowed the road was nice enough to make sure the truck wasn’t buried.
It was awesome, really, since the snow storm that came through wasn’t a blizzard. Just these huge snowflakes–and a lot of them–slowly falling all day and all night. I’ll always remember that snow fall. It was beautiful and peaceful.
I would have liked to have seen that… I’m from Québec City, myself, so I’ve seen snow before…
I’ve also lived in Toronto, Ontario, for a number of years, and thought their winters were annoying… it would snow a few inches, and would melt in the following days… The temperature would still hover between 0C and -10C, but there was barely any snow… One winter, I could see grass up the side of an overpass all winter… that is just wrong!
When I came back to Québec, I was traveling by bus, and while waiting for the next bus, I was watching some snow being blown off the roofs of the taller buildings, and the first thought that came to my mind was: “Hmm… I missed that…”
I earned a reputation at work of ensuring it snowed in London while I was on holiday skiing. I went almost ten years without seeing snow at home, but there was usually plenty where I was when it did fall there.
The best I saw was in Spain, where the snow was deep enough that on the chair lift up from the village to the pistes, you had to lift your feet up some of the time or you ended up walking, and on the peaks, they had had to dig trenches out for the lifts, as the snow was higher than the tops of pylons carrying the lift wires.
I went back to the same place the next year, and it rained so much, all the snow melted…
One learns to adapt in Canada.
http://chickencrap.com/c.php?c=3931
I remember in Orlando, back in the 70s, we actually got a dusting. People freaked. They absolutely freaked. They were terrified to drive. Being an old mountain boy, I thought it was funny as hell.
Florida gets a very large number of Canadians “snowbirding”, flying south to vacation in the middle of winter. I don’t doubt my people were there, laughing our asses off as well.
Hell, the last time I went down, locals were actually apologizing that I had my vacation “ruined” by the terrible weather, 65°F (18°C to the rest of the planet). I was out in shorts and a T-shirt having a great time! It was -28°C back home!
The most fun snowstorms are those with thunder (and lightning, though that is usually dimmed by the snow).