I am very jealous; I would love a remote cabin like that. That is a snow load for sure.
For that neck of the woods that actually looks quite lean.
I don't remember if this photo was the first, second, third, or fourth roof shoveling of the season. it is a an old (>50 yrs) cabin hand built by my father without power tools and I may go more there in winter often than absolutely necessary after heavy lake effect snowfalls to ensure it is still standing. I never know when there is also a thick once partially melted heavy ice layer under the snow adding to the weight.
That looks more like it! I went to College in The Southern Tier of NY and traveled up through this area a lot on the way to The ADK and this reminds me more of the Biblical Proportions that can occur there. Situations on a roof like that can be like a mini glacier and represent a snapshot of the layers in the existing snowpack. I have steel on my roof and it makes for some interesting photos.
I do have a steel roof, quite old, with multiple layers of protective aluminum asphalt coatings, making it somewhat rough and easy for a first layer of ice to stick instead of sliding off. I believe it was around 1977 when this area received as much as 400 inches of snow that season, and often receives well over 4 feet of snow from any single storm. Search Youtube for a video from 1939 of snowplowing this area of Tug Hill, Montague NY, as i also remember it growing up in the 1950-60s.
You were one of the first people I thought of with the snow drought. Your stick season got extended!
I was born in New Hartford NY in 1968 and lived near Clinton until I was 7, and storms dropping multiple feet of snow were the rule, not the exception. In September road crews would put up snow fencing along all the fields, and we had enough snow to snowmobile by my birthday (Nov 8.) It usually took 2 or 3 days for the snowplows to reach us, so snowmobiles were the primary means of transportation at times. I can remember the 3 kids (I’m the oldest) shoveling the driveway with my mom, and her getting angry because the plow driver wouldn’t raise his wing and plowed a huge windrow at the end of the driveway. So when she’d hear the plow coming she’d run out to start our 68 Chevelle (just a boring old 6-cyl
) and back it to the bottom of the driveway to make the plow raise the wing.Please read my post again.
I am no meteorologist but is it possible it has something to do with the ice coverage on Lake Champlain? Here is a bit of data that might be better analyzed by statistician? Dates of Lake Champlain Closing
It's a similar story with some other northeast NWS locations. For instance, in Albany, New York, the 1900-1959 average was 48.9 inches, while the 1960-2022 average was 61.8 inches.
I cannot recall the source now, I do believe that there was a change in how snowfall was measured at some point. Something like after a storm vs periodic measurements during a storm. Settlement/consolidation could account for small differences in the totals.
Thanks for confirming my sanity Nessmuk. I grew up near the Tug and recall those storms.
