4/7/2008 9:50:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Weekend Weather Breaks Snow Record In St. J
Taylor Reed
Staff Writer


St. Johnsbury residents have something to brag about.

The winter of 2007-08 was the snowiest in town since record keeping began in 1894, said meteorologist Steve Maleski, of the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in St. Johnsbury.

"The odds of this happening again in my lifetime are pretty small," he said. "If you're a kid, you have the chance to see a winter like this again, if there's no climate change."

A total of 139.2 inches of snow had fallen on St. Johnsbury by Saturday afternoon, nudging past the old record of 139 inches set in 1968, Maleski said. St. Johnsbury tied the record just after 4 p.m. on Friday.








Measurements are taken on a "snow board" behind the museum, Maleski said. Officials guidelines are observed to prevent over, or under measuring snowfall, he said.

The weather pattern this winter was reminiscent of 1970-71, though a bit warmer, Maleski said.

"We didn't have a lot of gigantic coastal blizzards," he said. "We had a number of moderate sized snowstorms with one or two heavy ones."

The potential effects of the snowfall this year loom large, Maleski said. The odds of a long, dry spring are low, he said.

"There's a lot of water in this snowpack," Maleski said. "The risk of flooding this spring is above normal."

If heavy rain falls, rivers and streams will almost certainly overflow, Maleski said. However, the threat will be reduced to normal spring flooding if warm weather finds its way to St. Johnsbury, he said.

Jim O'Reilly, owner of the Wildflower Inn and Lyn-Burke Motel in Lyndon, hopes for a smooth transition into summer, but said the snowy winter boosted business.

"The snow makes for good business," he said. "It was definitely better than the last two years."

The Lyn-Burke Motel, which attracts a lot of snowmobilers, did better every month this winter, O'Reilly said. The Wildflower Inn, which attracts skiers and snowmobilers, did best in December, January and February, but March lagged behind the previous year, when people clamored to take advantage of late season snow, he said.

Now, O'Reilly has one request for mother nature.

"We're just hoping the snow moves in a nice, orderly fashion so we don't have any flooding," he said.

On the flip side of the coin, St. Johnsbury resident

Roger Damon, a lifelong skier and avalanche expert, hopes for more snow. The skiing has been phenomenal, starting with snow in December, he said.

"It just set the tone for the whole winter," he said. "This year was outstanding."

The conditions at Burke Mountain were top notch, he said.

"Mother nature just blessed the place," Damon said. "It was just absolutely outstanding skiing. I couldn't agree more with all the people from away who said this is the best skiing in New England."

The skiing at Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington in New Hampshire's White Mountains is equally impressive, said Damon, a patroller at Tuckerman. The avalanche rating was low this weekend, and a good crowd was on the mountain, he said.

"At times it felt just like being out west," Damon said. "It was such beautiful, beautiful snow."

Damon also remembered the winter of 1968.

"This year was head and shoulders over that winter because I was working and couldn't go everyday then," he said.

He remembers one snowstorm in 1968 forced a closure at Fairbanks Scales, where he was working. About 36 inches of snow fell.

"The plant shut down at noon," Damon said. "By 1:15 p.m. we were skiing up at Burke. We went up and just cut it to pieces. We were the only ones there."

Dave Gwatkin, spokesman at Burke Mountain, wasn't there for the winter of 1968, but said snowfall this winter made for record breaking lift ticket and season pass sales. About 19 feet of snow fell on the mountain.

"The season was really all about well-timed, well-distributed snow," he said. "This was a year where everything kept going well."

Despite a January thaw, snow was in place for all the critical holidays, Christmas, New Years, and Martin Luther King day, Gwatkin said.

Must be cause of global warming.

Do you have the link, Id like to send it to a few non believers.

That line concerns me. I hope he is very wrong!!!

let's not forget about trends...
just because we have two warmer than normal winters doesn't necessarily mean global warming is taking place AND just because this is the snowiest winter in St. J since '68 doesn't mean that global warming doesn't exist.

The earth's climate changes with or without us, but we can all do something to reduce carbon emissions if we try.

Here's to another great winter next year, and I promise not to log less than 1000 miles in '09

Colder winters can produce LESS SNOW, just as easilly as a warm winter making less snow.

There is that delicate ballance that is needed. Even if the earth warms, it can put more moisture into the air, creating more clouds and precip. More Heat energy can cause stronger storms, And if you increase snowcover a bit, more energy is reflected into space, causing cooling.

So warming can create snow. How ironic

http://caledonianrecord.com/main.asp?Secti...ArticleID=38991

good gawd we had 5" of fresh in Granby fri , a freind in town had topped 12' in the secound weak of march i wonder what the total will be of course i've seen in snow in june (no shit )

As was the case for a good part of 2005 where it was much colder than usual in December and January if memory serves. Every time a storm came from the west or up from the coast, a blast of cold artic air would come down pushing the storm away.

we sure can, lets start off by telling the goddamn volcano's and wildfires to stop their dangerous tactics with their crazy pollution, and uncaring ways of polluting our air!!!!

"avalanche rating" was low? ???? they get them things in NH??

The White Mountains in New Hampshire are quite frequently hit with avalanches,..Ive seen one in July one year, it was a small one, but if you were in it, you would have most likely been killed, the snow is very hard at that time of year,. much more common in feb/march. http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/avalanche/

Avalanches do happen, and are most common in these places: #1 Mt Washington,#2 Katadine in Me #3 Part of Smugglers Notch #4 Whiteface mTn NY, although they can happen in other locations too.

the problem with posting rather than speaking is that one can't discern tone through simply writing. So, I'm left to decide how to take your response. Either you are annoyed that I suggested we can each do something to reduce carbon emissions and chose to bring up naturally occurring phenomena that do emit carbon into the air in hopes of making me feel like a dumb As$. Or, you are simply mentioning the fact that volcanoes and wildfires do emit carbon and other crap into the air and there is nothing at all anybody can do. If the latter, I agree completely.

LOL...

haha, sorry for the lack of smileys to depict the sarcasm . i'm with you on less polluting of the air on the human scale, and shit should be done to clean up.....companies dumping waste into rivers, oceans, and the air, etc; but still don't believe that humans have caused the change in the earth's natural heating and cooling cycles. no matter how much proof (read: propoganda, straight lies, made up bullshit) al gore and his predecessors cult crew have spilled for monetary gain.

o.k. I'm with you for the most part. I agree that humans are not 100% responsible, but we probably have done some damage since the British industrial revolution in the 1850s or so. Have a good summer.