Free Snow

Since the city hasn't collected the snow since it started falling every few days at the end of October, I decided to see if anyone else wanted it.  One guy driving by asked it there was free delivery too.  Streets like mine are really getting narrow and there is a lot of creative parking. 




The Anchorage Daily News had a front page story about that sad situation of the side streets and main street sidewalks.  I haven't been able to find confirmation of my belief that we've never had so many days over a long period of time where there was measurable snow.  But the ADN did say there were only six days in December without measurable snow.

Here's our back deck.  I've been clearing this, a little less regularly than the driveway, but it keeps building back up.  This is maybe three days accumulation.

I'm starting to think I need to clear the roof.  I have this wonderful gadget invented by the father of one of my students long ago.  I have to find it in the garage.  I'll try to get a video tape of how it works.  It's ingenious and gets the snow off the roof without having to lift any shovels. 

Photo from Facebook

While we've had a lot of snow, Valdez has had a lot more.  This photo was posted on Facebook as the highway going into Valdez.  But I noticed the cars were on the wrong side of the road.  First I thought maybe there was a road block and they just had cars going in one lane.  But one comment said it was Norway and another comment said it was Japan.

Japan makes more sense because they drive on the left side of the road.  Anyway, we still have a way to go before we're in this condition. [UPDATE 1/9/12 - Commenter Kenrick provides link to other pictures of this road in Japanese mountains.]

NOAA (I think the link takes you to the site, not specifically Jan. 8, 2012) suggests that the US snow cover is pretty low this year.

Automated Model Discussion:
January 8, 2012

Area Covered By Snow:	14.6%
Area Covered Last Month:	37.3%
Snow Depth
Average:	1.4 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	1000.2 in
Std. Dev.:	6.2 in
Snow Water Equivalent
Average:	0.3 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	521.6 in
Std. Dev.:	1.7 in

So any of you in one of those snowless areas who needs some white stuff, it's free, but you have to pick it up yourself.