Thursday’s Special: Wintry

Living in New England, we typically have a lot of wintry weather. Not so much this year, but we have had some recent winters that rivaled Siberia for intensity both of cold and depth of snow. The month of blizzards here is usually February, although we’ve had blizzards as early as the beginning of December and as late as April. So far, this year has not been a very snowy year. If I want a reminder of real winter in New England, I can open any folder from February past to know there may yet be significant snow in our near future. We don’t break out the champagne until March. Garry says April, please. We don’t want to jinx ourselves.

Meanwhile, though, I am enjoying not being buried under 10 feet or more of ice and snow … and not seeing below zero temperatures and listening to the radiators struggling to deliver heat.

I took these photographs in February of 2015 during two different blizzards which hit only two days apart. Each storm dropped more than a foot and a half of snow. More than 10 feet fell in February alone. We set a new record for that winter’s snowfall, breaking the record set the previous winter. Note that these pictures are not shot in or converted to monochrome. The world during snowstorms is monochrome.

Finally, I wanted to show at least one impressionist snow scene. Not just the way it looks, but the way it feels. I should mention that the fences are five feet high and the snow, in some places goes right over them. And there were at least three more heavy snows to come in the next 10 days.