A few more NY snow pics - snowed for four days now

It's been snowing for four days now. We've got around 4 feet on the ground with 6-7 foot drifts.

Town plow truck came through last night and tried to widen the road with a wing. Big mistake. Snow is too heavy. So, it did have a fairly clear single lane. Now ? Road is block in many places with snow balls 3-4 feet in diameter. I wish they'd give it up and just stay away. Years back they'd close the road and I'd plow myself out - and things worked much better.

News this morning says two dairy barns have collpased and half a down houses. But, it's not secret that there's tons of snow on these roofs. So, I can't feel sorry for someone who makes no effort to clear them. I DO feel sorry for some of the cows that have gotten crushed, or old folks who can't do the work for themselves.

Our old out-house not looking very comfortable.

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Some buried tractors and SUV by the solar panels.

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Oliver OC46 crawler on left. Can you see it?

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Happy little kid

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One of my plow trucks that's a little snowed in

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Town road just above my house
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Town road below my house
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do you have to shovel snow off the solar panels? I was just curious , I know nothing about them . Lets go check out florida , I think we have had enough ,

And we think We live in the snow belt! You folks have gotten pasted this year!
We're below average for snow fall this year.

No way to do it safely that I know of. Usually they shed snow pretty well. Problem is, snow is 10 feet deep at the bottom now, and the snow cannot fall anymore. So, it's a solid wall of snow from the ground all the way up. That has never happened here before. So, I'll just have to wait for some sunlight and warmth and see what happens. It's unusually warm right now. Up around 34 degrees F. But, it's still snowing too.
This seems like lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario, that usually happens a 100 miles north of us.

Looks like your county needs some road graders to clear the roads like they have here. V-plow up front to break the road, wing to push it back then a scraper underneath to get the chunks back off the surface. Then some of them UP here now even have a back blade to make sure the road surface is clear.

I usually take one of my loader tractors and clear the snow under the drip line of the roof so that the snow has someplace to slide off too. Or else I end up with a roof that the snow can't slide off of, and windows that are blocked with snow.

Wow! Thats a lot of snow - whereabouts in NY do you live?

This season's "record" snowfalls further prove that "average temps" and weather are simply a "fig newton" of our imaginations.
It would appear that weather operates on more of 50 or 100 year cycle, not a day to day, month to month, or even year to year cycle as we many times want to believe.
It snowed 14 inches here back in March 1987. Has not done that much since, but I bet it will again when it decides to do so.

There is from the pictures a lot of snow in your area. Sort of looks like you have some equipment to move the snow. The upside to all this is sometimes quite often if the storm or snow does't stay in your area it eventually arrives in Nova Scotia. This time we received heavy rain and high winds. Everything I own was by my own design and I am the builder, so not sure of my skills in building something that would take the load of snow, as too much weight. Cheers, Murray

Note re: shoveling snow off roof. My brother in law gives everyone a strong WARNING these day's as last month Tom was starting to clean snow off the shed roof. Ten day's in hospital with a few broken ribs and one rib punctured a lung, when he hit the green garbage bin on the quick trip off the roof. Be careful. Cheers, Murray

I built everything with twice the load-capacity that local code calls for (120 lb. instead of 60 lbs.). But even so, I still stuck braces under most everything until I got the snow off.

We've got graders. Problem here is all the steep mountain roads that you don't have in the UP (unless you want to count Porcupine Mountain on the western side). Whenver I got to the UP, it's feels like a vacation simply because I can take a few steps without goint up or down something. I've got land up in Paradise on the Eastern side.

Otsego County. 60 miles from Albany and 20 miles from the "big cities" of Cooperstown, Oneonta and Cobleskill.

Last I heard, it only rained in Albany. Seems elevation makes a big difference.

now i remember why grandpa kept draft horses and a sleigh around, never got to ride in it as a kid, but heard the stories about having to use that to get around with, something about the winter of 1936,

All hail Coby tech

Class of 1980

Ag Engineering (farmstead mechanization!!)

(quoted from post at 11:13:14 02/28/10) We've got graders. Problem here is all the steep mountain roads that you don't have in the UP (unless you want to count Porcupine Mountain on the western side).

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Houghton and Hancock have some steep hills with stops signs every block. Amazing what a 6 wheel drive grader with chains on all the tires will push. That or they use Oshkosh trucks with blowers up front and a couple hundred horse motor on the back to power it.

Gotta have big equipment to move big snow. Guess someplace that gets that kind of snow monthly like we do they are much better prepared.

Did you ever get your snowblower out of the field?

Not too far from you; 10 miles south of Cobleskill. There"s an Allis D-17 under there somewhere!

We've got a couple of old Oshkosh and FWD trucks. Also an old airport rig with a huge snowblower in-front and a Buda engine in back that powers it. I suspect in this area of New York, there's just about every type of snow removal equipment you could imagine, especially a little north of me near Tug Hill. That area, on average gets more snow then anywhere in the UP. That area gets the heaviest snowfall in the contiguous United States east of the Rockies. That because of lake effect from Lake Ontario. Last year they got one storm that dropped 12 feet and lasted a week. And, school was not closed a single day. That because they're used to it and are prepared.
Many of the towns are hesitant to use the older stuff now unless things really get bad. That because it's hard to get people to work on them and keep them going. Most of the town garages have gotten unionized, and the workers won't do half what they used to. Hopefully the UP hasn't gotten that bad yet. I'm hoping to move there soon.

Did you ever get sent to any of the local tractor dealerships for on-the-job training? At the last Deere dealership I worked at, in Oneonta, we took one or two people every year from the Cobleskill Ag. program and made them work like slaves.

jdemaris

When i graduated in 2002, they were still making us do that. I did mine at the local new holland dealer . I awlays your pics and am amazed at the knowledge you have accumulated over the years.

Jd, I was through your area on I90 in '07. That's beautiful country in July.

Nope the UP is still fixing and using equipment from the 50's. Although in the past few years they've gotten many new graders and a few brand new oshkosh trucks. Funny how they are 50 years newer and still look about the same.

We are in a snow drought now only like 230" so far, but still have a bit of winter left. Got about 6" the last two days but along lake superior there was some 8-10 foot drifts and they were out with end loaders this evening clearing them.

Thanks for the pictures , I hope youre keeping up OK.It seems like 1' of this snow is equal to 2-3' of regular/lake effect in weight and water content. I have an idea for us , lets see if we can get a new Olympic event for roof shovelling. I have been in heavy training the last couple days. So far today I did my 2 garages , porch and tractor shed ( 3-3 1/2', no drifting, only what fell)and half of my Dads garage which had 4 - 4 1/2' on part of it.By far the worst was the east side of my Dads house roof which had 4-5', did that yesterday afternoon . Lucky for me the steeper roof on my house doesnt seem to accumulate as much snow, and my barn even less , some of which already slid off (steel roof). I worry most that with all this snow , if we should get a warm day with rain the weight could double easily. My neighbor over the hill from me had a pole barn go down Fri pm shortly after I plowed their driveway. Do you know if that auction at River Valley Ford NH took place 2/27 ?

Are you on the east or the west side? I know very little about the west end and spend most of my Michigan time around Whitefish Bay in Paradise.
Getting kind of tough to fill a diesel truck up there since their only diesel "gas station" closed up.

Big problem here in my area of NY with big trucks is some of the narrow steep dirt roads. My road is 12 feet wide and winds its way though deep woods and is about as steep as a hill can get. The town had a Oshkosh go off the road into a ravine a few years ago, and left it there until spring. Usually they cannot use a big truck with a snow-wing attached here, and they rely on a F450 Ford with a smaller plow and a sander on the back. When you've got a big rig on a 12 foot wide road lined with big trees, one slip and you get into a huge mess.

I'm on the west end about 4 miles from the Porkies.

My wife made me drive over there the first time I ever saw Michigan - just to prove to me that there was at least one mountain in Michigan. At the time I was convinced all MI was flatland. Since then, I've encountered some rolling hills, here and there, along with some high spots like Porcupine or if you like sand, Sleeping Bear.

We may not have mountains but we have some very rugged terrain. The west end has lots of exposed bedrock and large rock outcrops that can be a few hundred feet tall. And we get more than enough snow to make it a challenge (got my snowmobile stuck going down a steep hill the other day). Just finished up a logging job that was 8 miles off the county road, our haul road didn't have more than 500' of straight stretch in the 8 miles it crossed a few ravines, rivers, and was a constant up/down hill trek, chains were a must for the truckers. Our 50 year old oshkosh cleared that road daily without much issue.

All this UP talk reminds me of when I was up there for school at MTU. I lived in Hancock one year and my neighbor worked for the County garage there on 26 near the lift bridge. Some of the trucks they have are from the 50's and have been repowered with newer engines and what not. They were selling the 2 oldest ones when I was there, a 1947 and 1948 Oshkosh. One truck was 230hp engine for the truck, 500hp engine for the snow blower. Seems they loose one every year on one of the hills in town (almost lost my truck on Agate St.). Tip it back on it's feet, check the oils, send it on it's way. Living a bit more south now I don't really miss the giant snows at all. Around here ya get 4 inches and people start to freak.

How many remember the Linn tractors; most every town in NY state had one back in the 40s and 50s. I remember the last time the Town of Fulton used theirs. We had the mother of all storms in "58 or "59 when I was a senior in H.S. They had the big V-plow on it and attempted to plow a small dirt road about a half mile from me. These things were darned near unstoppable. They lost track of the road and ran down about a five foot embankment into a field. Same as jd"s Oskosh, they left it "til spring. Hay was brought in by helicopter for some of the local farmers. I remember one night about midnite being woke up when all the windows in our old house began to rattle as a D-8 rumbled past in high gear on the way to Summit where the road had been closed for a week. The Army Depot in Schenctady loaned out
some of their heavy equipment to the towns.
I"m not sure we had more snow that time but the wind really got into it.