Let It Snow
story and photos by Rich Finzer
Few among us have never heard Vaughn Monroe’s classic rendition of “Let It Snow,” or hummed a few bars of “White Christmas.” But if you live in the Snow Belt, comprised of portions of Wayne, Cayuga, Oswego and Monroe counties bordering the southern shore of Lake Ontario, winter is about more than Bing Crosby crooning to Rosemary Clooney. In the Snow Belt, winter is tough, and we usually receive more snow than we’ve got places to put it. According to the National Weather Service, Central New York experienced measurable snowfall every day from January 3, 2011, until Groundhog Day. Worse still, it’s liable to snow virtually any time of the year. (In Rochester, for example, it snowed briefly in the morning of Saturday, June 3, 1967, the day of my Senior Prom.)
If you live in a rural area with wide-open spaces, there’s usually somewhere snow can be moved. But on a narrow Oswego city street, that snow becomes problematic because as it’s plowed and piled up, the street becomes narrower. It’s weird; eventually, you lose all perspective until it finally goes away in the spring. The streets seem to grow 3 feet wider overnight, and residents rediscover long-buried things – like the sidewalk and the curb!
A typical snow covered road in northern Cayuga County
The Golden Snowball
The five major upstate cities, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Binghamton “compete” annually for the Golden Snowball Award, a glistening crystal trophy that has taken up nearly permanent residence at City Hall in Syracuse. The trophy even has its own website, goldensnowball.com, which lists the annual snow totals for each city as far back as the 1940s. The website is the brainchild of local Syracuse web designer Pat DeCoursey, the so-called “Oracle of the Golden Snowball.”
Poor Buffalo has earned the unenviable reputation as Upstate’s snowiest city, but typically lags well behind the Salt City in the snow department. On average, Syracuse receives 120 inches of the white stuff each year. However, during the winter of 2010-2011, Syracuse well exceeded that total, receiving 176 inches, but that’s still almost nothing when compared to the snowfall in places like Oswego.
According to records maintained by the Meteorology Department at the SUNY Oswego campus, Oswego averages 150 inches annually, and in 1972, received a whopping 269 inches! That’s 22 feet of the stuff, which easily explains why Oswego has been excluded from competing for the trophy.
Blizzards
Over the past 60 years, Central New York has been on the receiving end of three great blizzards that struck in 1957, 1966 and March, 1993, when 54 inches fell in about 18 hours. As a kid during the 1957 storm, I remember helping my dad shovel our driveway. We’d no sooner finished when the plow truck from the Chili Highway Department came by, blocking the street end with another 4 to 5 feet of freshly compacted snow. And with that, my old man unleashed a fusillade of profanity that raised the ambient air temperature 40 degrees and caused cracks to appear in the Earth’s surface! His tirade was so loud my mom could hear him from inside our house. But, you must understand, contending with a blizzard does have a way of shortening a person’s fuse.
Of the three storms, the Blizzard of ’66 was by far the worst – or the best, depending upon your perspective. You see, classes at Gates-Chili High School were cancelled for an entire week! During that same four-day storm, Oswego received a record 102 inches.
When the 1993 blizzard struck, a giant V-plow was pressed into service to clear roads in northern Cayuga County. But believe it or not, sometimes even a big iron bruiser like that can’t get the job done. When that happens in the Snow Belt, we break out the heavy artillery.
In parts of Oswego County, for example, the snow plowed against highway guardrails often melts partially and subsequently refreezes, eventually developing the consistency of concrete. This densely packed material will resist nearly any effort to plow it. So, road crews don’t bother with a truck, using an oversized snowblower instead. This beast does not fool around, clearing an 8-foot-wide swath with every pass, throwing whatever it grinds through approximately 100 feet. You can view a video clip of one in action at YouTube.com by typing the words “Chase Oshkosh snow blower” in your search window.
The sheer size and capability of the machine has captured the public’s imagination. A Chase employee told me the vehicle makes frequent appearances in many Oswego County fireman’s parades, field day events and summer solstice celebrations. Evidently, for many Snow Belt denizens, watching a giant snowblower roll by improves the flavor of their summertime chicken barbecue.
Serious snow removal. Note the eyebrows
Ontario Rules
Apart from Nor’easters (blizzards generated by Atlantic coastal storms), Lake Ontario’s lake effect snows account for the lion’s share of our annual misery. And the farther south you travel, the less the accumulation from lake effect squalls. If 2 feet falls on the Ridge Road (Route 104), areas near the Thruway usually receive only a few inches, and areas south of Seneca Falls (on Routes 5 & 20), might only receive an overnight dusting.
But, in the northern stretches of Oswego or Cayuga counties, all that snow creates an additional headache known as the “Where do we pile this stuff?” problem. In large parking lots, vehicles often drive through snow canyons, the cleared passages between the piles, and if spring takes its time arriving, sometimes it’s early May before the last of those mounds disappear.
All that snow impacts emergency vehicles too, particularly fire departments. Locating a hydrant that’s been buried in 3 feet of snow squanders precious response time. Conscientious homeowners keep their hydrants shoveled out, but on an undeveloped stretch of highway, hydrants are equipped with flexible marking posts topped with bright orange plastic flags. Ironically, the plows keeping the roads clear for the fire trucks are often the root cause of the buried hydrants! I’m not picking on the plow drivers; they have a tough job that they perform extremely well, but mishaps do occur occasionally, and road signs are typically the targets.
Other times, accumulated snow leads to situations that can only be described as absurd. A “No Parking” sign held aloft by a 10-foot post that is buried in an 8-foot tall mound of snow is just one example. Forget the threat of being towed away; you can’t park there to begin with!
And every now and again, as a gesture of defiance against the never-ending pummeling of winter, folks resort to a bit of whimsy. Nick Canale, owner of Canale’s Ristoranti in Oswego, provided a prime example. On February 10, 2011, with the help of his son and an extremely loyal patron, the trio lugged a dining table (complete with tablecloth), two chairs and an umbrella to the top of the 15-foot snow pile occupying the corner of the eatery’s parking lot. I don’t know if Canale’s accepted reservations for the table, but if they did, customers would have been required to furnish their own ladder!
Magic vs. Meteorology
School districts in cities like Oswego, Fulton and Syracuse build a certain number of snow days into their calendars, and generally most of them get used. But in districts farther south, young children experience snow days much less frequently. To combat this inequity, youngsters often combine their magical powers and perform a bizarre ritual whereby they wear their pajamas to bed backwards.
Urban legend holds that this practice will cause enough snow to fall to cancel classes the next day. And while there is no scientific evidence supporting this strategy, Heaven help the parent who ridicules this behavior.
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