October Snow

Winter in the Berkshires can quite easily stretch from October through May. We’ve had snow at our house as late as June 1st – I have photos somewhere of snow coating our tulips. And we often get dustings of snow in early October. But it’s rare that we get out and out snowstorms before November.

But hey, when the remnants of Hurricane Wilma get together with tropical storm Alpha and a routine cold front, fun things can happen. The photo above is what my driveway looked like this morning. The trees caught more wet snow than usual since most still have (yellow) leaves on them. Most are merely bent down over the driveway – some have come uprooted from the waterlogged soil and I’ll need to chop them into firewood later today.

Rachel was understandably daunted by the trees in the driveway and cancelled her morning meeting – I went down with a bowsaw to clear a path and realized that the branches blocking the path were actually pretty light. I drove through them, which knocked some snow off, lightening them up further, and felt a bit like going through a natural car wash. Here’s hoping they return to their usual positions as the temperature rises to a balmy 5C…

Driving home last night from Berkman, the announcer on WBUR, the Boston NPR station I listen to, kept reporting that the storm would cause rain and high winds, as well as some snow “well West of Boston”. Guess we’re well west of Boston.