February 12, 1999

     Snow

Snow is whimsically called "nature's peanut butter" because it is crunchy, kids love it and it sticks to the roofs of our homes.

It has value beyond its fragile beauty.  It nourishes and protects alfalfa, keeps frost from moving too deep and helps insulate house foundations.

In cities, snow can become a costly nuisance.  To travelers, it can be a slippery, blinding hazard whether they are on foot or in a vehicle.  Yet new snow cover also brings us a fresh, clean landscape, with rounded corners and roughness smoothed.

The average annual total snowfall in the Twin Cities area is 56 inches, and very seldom does a single storm bring more than 12 inches.  Keeping these numbers in mind, it's interesting to look at some of the extreme snowfall records for the United States.

The winter of 1971-72 brought 1,122 inches (93.5 feet) of snow to the Paradise Ranger Station on Mount Rainier in Washington.  The greatest 24-hour snowfall was 76 inches at Silver Lake, Colo., during April 14-15, 1921.  A single storm, from February 13-19, 1959, covered Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in northern California with a 189-inch snowfall.