SNOWFALL RECORDS
The Isolation Blues;
reflections during covid-19
Around these parts nothing gets a conversation started any better than, “How much snow do you think we’ve had so far this year?” While it’s usually best to avoid topics involving politics, religion or your next door neighbor, everyone has something at stake in how deep the snow is. Our very identity as stoic and durable New Englanders is wrapped up in snow depth and the severity of the winter. As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve had a rather modest snowfall thus far but with last week-end’s blizzard of ’22 (and its twelve inches of snow in Monticello) we now have a total of 38 inches for the winter. The old-timers used to brag about winter years ago when the snow banks almost touched the telephone wires and they wouldn’t waste their breath talking about a twelve inch storm. Anyways, here is a photo my father took with his 35mm slide camera one year showing the winter road conditions in Northern Maine. I think it was taken in the 1940s on a side road in Monticello, most likely the Nichols Road on the north end of town where the Hutchinson family homestead was located. As you can see, the road is only wide enough for a single vehicle to pass and the snow banks are pretty high, almost as high as the telephone wires. (Of course the telephone poles were a little shorter back in those days…) It appears as if my Dad staged the shot by walking ahead and then turning around to take the picture making it look as if the car was heading towards him. And since there wasn’t much traffic that day I don’t think he even had to hurry his shot!
Since I’ve always been interested in comparing old-time winters to recent ones, I started recording annual snowfall amounts at the cabin in the winter of 1994. Climate shift was also a reason I wanted to document snowfall amounts (and temperatures) to see if there was any noticeable change in data. For my records, the snow year starts in November and ends in early April. For example, the snow year 1994 starts in November ’93 and ends in April ’94. You will find my “Snowfall Amount” chart included below that contains numbers for the last 28 years. I also break down the data into three categories; low snow year, good snow year and heavy snow year. While these “unofficial measurements” are taken in Monticello, I’ve noticed (that in most years) there is little variance between these numbers and those recorded both in Houlton and the weather bureau in Caribou. A special year of note is the winter of 2008 when we set the state record for most snowfall at 160”. I wonder what the old-timers would say about that? Enjoy the data.
In the woods,
Dave
February 2, 2022