Back again, from the NaNoWriMo forums to copy my post from there to here. Today’s subject: Snow.
[quote=PearlRose]Snow! Tell me about snow!
So, I would like to write some snow into my novel this year. It’s taking place in a fantasy realm, but still snow would be commonplace in some of the areas. Some of my characters come from places that have a lot of snow.
I, however, live in Florida, and have for my whole life!
So, tell me about snow! What does it feel like? What do you like to do in the snow? Can you tell when it’s about to start snowing–kind of like when it’s about to rain? How hard is it to walk in snow? Ice? What about different kinds of snow?
Um, enlighten me. I’ve never seen snow before.
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Outsiders, are usually taken by surprise, when they see their first Maine snow. They are rarely prepared for how deep it gets and how fast it falls. Most come here thinking they’ll see an inch or two in December. They come early planning to spend a few weeks in October looking at fall foliage. They don’t expect the first snowfall to hit in September or the fact that by October we may very well already have 4 or 5 feet of snow on the ground. In February 2005 we got hit with a 9 foot snow fall, which fell in less than 3 hours. Around here – doors open in not out, you keep your shovels indoors, you have a wood stove and case loads of candles, and you have a food supply of no less than 5 months worth of food on your selves at all times. You plan on going weeks on end with no electricity, no roads, no contact with anyone, and this in a town with 12,000 people, 15 miles from a town with 64,000 people.
It shock tourists when the reality hits them, that they could and often are, trapped in a place without electricity or phones (and forget about cell phones working). Why? Because snow is heavy and it topples 200 foot tall pine trees, across roads, lines, and rooftops. Very few people who come vacationing in Maine, stop the really think about just how harsh winter in Maine, really is.
Places that get a few inches of snow a year, are far different than places that get a few feet of snow a week. People that seeing only a dusting of snow (in Maine a dusting is any snowfall less than a foot deep), often view snow as fun. They look forward to it, as though it was a novelty. Maine gets snow 11 months of the year. In my town, Old Orchard Beach, the only month I have not personally seen snow was August.
In a place like this, we plan our entire year around the snow. We have to. It’s a fact of life, that if you want to live in Maine year round you have to be prepared for snow at a moment’s notice and without warning. (about two-thirds of the locals are not 12 month residents, living here only from May to October)
What does it feel like?
Depends on the weather.
If the temperature is warm (40F) than the snow is wet, slushy, and sticky. It’s like a snow cone or slush puppy icy drink falling from the sky. This type of snow hits the ground in a watery mess and can cause major flooding of rivers, streams, brooks, creeks, etc. Along swamps and marshes, roads wash out. This type of snow fall is very, very, very, very heavy – it topples pine trees, caves in roofs, collapses roads, washes out bridges, and over all creates havoc. Warm wet slushy snow is the least welcomed of the snow falls. It’s too heavy to shovel, too wet for snow-plows (I believe they are called snow throwers in the south, because that’s what our Florida tourists always call them.), too slippery to walk in. This type of snow is rarely seen in forested regions, and is most often seen in urban city regions, especially in places with lots of tall buildings (which give off heat that melts the snow as it falls). Rarely do these slushy storms ever get more than 6 inches tall and usually they melt away in a week or snow. They tend to fall in late spring (March – May here in Maine).
Snow that comes below 30F is soft and light and fluffy. It is called “Cold Snow” due to the fact that it only occurs when the temperatures are really, really, really cold. This is the best type of snow in every way. It does little if any damage, it’s easy to shovel, it’s easy to walk in, and the storm itself rarely is an issue. This snow, can however, come in huge waves – because it is light and fluffy, it is easily picked up by high winds, causing “white out conditions”. These storms can also sit in one spot and last for days on end. Around here, snow drifts are 10 or 12 feet tall, even if only one or two feet of snow fell. In mountain areas these drifts can reach in excess of 20 feet tall. Because the snow is so light weight it drifts like the sand dunes of Egypt and even when it is NOT snowing, you can have a white out, simple because high winds, blow the already fallen snow back up into the air. This is the type of snow most often seen during a blizzard, and is more common in mountain regions, than in urban or coastal regions. It is rarely seen in cities, due to the buildings giving off so much heat. These storms can happen any time of the year, providing the temperature is cold enough (less than 30F or 0C).
In between these two temps comes what we call “snowman snow” – which is a cross between the wet slushy stuff and the light fluffy stuff. It’s not as heavy as the slush type, but still heavy enough to be difficult to shovel. It’s light enough to drift, but because of it’s sticky nature, it packs in tight and freezes into huge blocks of ice, which are sometimes impossible to shovel through. This is the snow that children look for, because it’s the one that usually results in school closings, and it’s also the ONLY type of snow in which you can build snow men and snowballs, or go sledding. This type of snow, is often seen in blizzards and a single storm can dump 4 or 5 feet or more in just a couple of hours.
Than there is “black ice” a strange sort of snow fall that happens, when the temperature fluctuates during a storm. Usually black ice occurs when the temps are really cold and a lot of light fluffy snow is falling, than suddenly a warm front comes in during the storm, causing the snow to turn to rain. This warm front usually only lasts a matter of minutes – quickly followed by another blast of cold winds, and a sudden instant temperature drop falling to below zero, instantly freezing the rain, on top of the snow. The end result has one of two effects, depending on how mush snow fell before it started raining. If a lot of snow fell, say a foot or more, the end result it a hard crusty snow which cuts through flesh causing deep wounds and nasty gashes in hands, legs, and knees, should you fall down. The problem is you are so cold that you don’t start bleeding until you go indoors, and often, you do not know you have cut yourself until you go inside again, and suddenly feel a sharp piercing pain. If the ice on top of the snow is deep enough, you can walk on top of the snow, just as if you are walking on solid ground. Beware though should your foot find a thin patch and go through the ice, because it will slash your ankle and leg to ribbons, like razors. This snow is near impossible to shovel, and most locals, take to stomping down paths, instead of even trying to shovel it. This type of black ice storm, takes months to melt, because the ice itself, can be up to 10 or 12 inches deep, due to it having soaked into the snow rather than melting the snow. This type of snow usually falls in late winter (December – January here in Maine)
The second form of black ice, is by far the most dangerous type of snow storm there is – death tolls stager after a black ice storm of this type. In this one, only an inch or so of snow fell, before the temp rose and rain took over. Because so little snow fell, usually all of it is melted away by the rain in a matter of minutes. Than the deep freeze blows over and freezes the ice, and this is where black ice gets it’s name from – because of the strange shift in temperatures, the rain freezes extremely fast into a mirror smooth finish, which is nearly invisible to the human eye. On trees, plants, and blades of grass it is called hoer-frost, but on tar roads, it is called black ice, because the roads appear just as black as ever, and drivers have no idea there is anything wrong with the roads, until they suddenly lose complete control of their car and are sent speeding faster and faster down the road until they finally come to an instant, and usually fatal halt, by hitting something. Most black ice storms around here, see a dozen or more deaths per storm, always from car crashes. Also, walking on black ice roads and pathways in impossible unless you are wearing cleats. This type of black ice, usually melts away after a day or two of sunshine has beat down on it, leaving just as quickly as it arrived. We can see this type of snow during any of the 12 months of the year, here in Maine, but usually see in hit us every single day in February, every single year. When black ice hits every day, day after day like that, it is than referred to as an Ice Storm. See Ice Storm 98 for more detailed info on the biggest storm to hit not only Maine, but most of NorthEast America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_ice_storm_of_1998
What do you like to do in the snow?
Around here – it’s not a question of what you LIKE to do in the snow, but rather, HOW can you do what you like to do in the snow.
Can you tell when it’s about to start snowing–kind of like when it’s about to rain?
The first thing you will notice before a snow storm – is dead silence. It is like every single bird suddenly dropped dead. They all go silent all at once, usually within an hour of the storm. That is quickly followed by a sharp, blast of cold wind, and the sky suddenly going completely grey, with huge low, foggy, silver grey clouds rolling in all around you. It’s like a tornado or a hurricane is about to strike, but instead, it’s a blizzard.
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I too am writing a snowy winter story. I started my NaNoWriMo planning on August 1st (just as I do every year.) My problem, as always when I start a new book, is that as soon as I get an idea and start researching it, while I’m researching, other ideas pop up and I end up planning several books at once. This can cause problems with NaNoWriMo, because with a timed contest like this, you have to write at the seat of your pants, non stop break neck speed, which means once the contest starts, you really can’t stop your novel and start a second, third, or fourth one dead in the middle! In my early years of NaNoing this has been a problem – heck, it was a problem last year too!
Anyways, in order to give myself time to change my mind about my plot 10 or 20 times, I start my NaNoNovel plotting in August instead of October with every one else, and it’s a good thing I did. This year I ended up with 13 plots between August 1st and September 30st!
In August, my goal was to write about a creepy circus. I love creepy circuses, always have, always will. Throughout the month of August all my Tweets chattered about my circus history research, but as the month wore on, more ideas popped up and my circus idea changed and evolved many times. From Steampunk to Horror to Romance to Fantasy and than back and forth between them all, my NaNoNovel has yet to settle down into a genre, but it’s plot, has become more clear.
So hot sunny August quickly went by, followed just as fast by September. No, almost. Something happened this year, something rarely seen. Something that threw a plot right in my lap, complete with characters. You see, I’m a farmer in a tourist town on the North Atlantic coast. That means winter comes fast, and summer is fleeting, our growing season is short, barely a 100 days long even in our best years, and when tourists hit the beach, they hit it all at once on one of the few days that we get each year without snow.
We start planting in May (providing the snow has melted that soon) and we hope we can get everything harvested before mid October when the first blizzard season of the winter starts. (Our “big” 9 foot blizzards of February, make our much smaller four foot blizzards of October look like a dusting.) Our town has a strange meteorological phenomena caused by the extreme cold winds that blow in off the Gulf of Maine and get trapped in Saco Bay. While the rest of the Southern Maine’s growing region is listed by the weather services as zone 5, here in Old Orchard Beach, we have a zone 4 growing season most years, and a zone 3 season in the colder years. Our summers rarely reach 70F and our winters commonly dip to -20F. Wind chill factors bring our temps to -40F from December to February. It’s like somebody cut a piece out of Alaska and dropped in next door to Portland just to be funny. (Yes, mini icebergs have formed on the shores of Old Orchard Beach – it’s rare, but it has happened.) Why we get this extreme cold while the rest of Maine does not, has been explained by weather men as having something to do with the way Saco Bay is shaped. It’s shaped like a horseshoe with a very small opening, which let’s the wind in off the ocean, but than traps it there holding the cold air in, all year long.
This year, has been abnormal, even for us. In 2009 our growing season started late – it was the first week of June by the time the ground had thawed enough to plant – a result of heavy rains the fall of 2008, getting frozen deep in the ground just before a blizzard than hit us in mid October that same week. By May 2008 we still had snow well over a foot tall covering most of our garden plot. This was highly unusual, because by May first we usually have the ground tilled and planted. Our growing season lost a whole month this year.
Usually when we have a late spring, we also have a late winter, so our growing season stays about the same. That is what we expected. Therefor, in August when I started planning my NaNoNovel, I did not plan on an early winter to take us by surprise. Second week of September 2009, after a night of Tweeting about my circus ideas, we awoke to find an alarmingly early frost had snuck in during the night and decimated our crops nearly 4 full weeks before harvest time!
To make things worse, the early cold, drove fish deep into the sea to escape the cold blasts on top of the ocean – meaning not only did farmers lose their crops, but fisherman lost their hauls as well.
To go one step farther – in mid-September our tourist season is not yet over. Palace Playland (the beach side amusement park) is still open and running, ice cream and pizza shops are still open, bikini clad tourists are still shopping, – the early cold front chased all the tourists out of Maine, forcing the rides and shops to shut down early.
As is normal for winter in Old Orchard, shops are boarded and shuttered, buildings are empty and the few of us that stay in this cold icy town year round, are once again living in a ghost town – a full two months earlier than normal!
And while normally I would complain at this early arrival of winter killing crops, chasing away tourist income, and driving me indoors to flee the harsh cold ocean winds – this could not have happened at a more perfect time! I had my creepy circus to write about, but no reason to write about them, no reason for them to be creepy, and more importantly, I had no characters to write about. November is fast coming upon us and I still had no clear idea what I wanted to write – and than this happens, and suddenly, riding in on an ocean breeze, everything makes perfect sense to me now – the story, the plot, where the circus came from, why they are here, what they want, and more importantly – who my main character is whom is leading my creepy circus onward: Jack Frost.
Of course, weird way our seasons are, this freak frost only lasted 2 days and than our weather went back to normal for this time of year. It came just long enough to kill crops, ruin fishing, and chase away tourists, leaving our town a ghost town. Oh well. In any case, it lasted long enough to give me a plot idea. And I thought it might be of interest to you for your own story, since I haven’t seen anyone mentioning frost yet. (frost usually sets in a few weeks before the first snow fall, so you can be sure that once you’ve had a frost, snow will soon follow.)
One thing I have not seen mentioned is the snow plows -
You don’t have to go too far South to find a big difference between out of state snow plows, and Maine snow plows. It’s not uncommon for people as close away as Massachusetts to ooggle at the size of Maine plow trucks and ask – Do you really get enough snow to need a plow that BIG?!? Around here, it’s not pick-up trucks with dinky litt;e snow pusher plows on the front; around here we have trucks that are specifically built with one purpose in mind – to be tall enough, wide enough, big enough, and heavy duty enough to drive single sweep through a 12 foot snow drift.
If you are talking about a place that gets a lot of snow, you’ll want to consider the size of their snow removal equipment. Most towns in Maine have at least one, and places that get the big storms have an entire fleet, of them. They vary in size from dump trucks to giant land movers.
Here’s one of the land-mover plow trucks without it’s plows on it:
http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/mark_simiele/2005/aug/file0006.jpg
http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/macneil/2008/10-20/sander.jpg
Here’s a few pictures of these trucks in action:
http://tinyurl.com/yzojp4d
http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/andy_bruchey/2005/dec31/dot-plow.jpg
http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4665686/snowplowtruck-main_Full.jpg
Another thing to consider is that, in spite of the huge size of these plow trucks, it takes a lot more than one of them to get the job done. Here’s a picture of a full plow team in action: http://colledun.com/gallery/albums/TowPlow/TowPlow.sized.jpg Notice how they stagger the trucks.
Don’t forget that in the north country where you find a lot of snow, you also find a lot of trains. For many months of the year, the roads are too icy for tractor-trailer-trucks to get through, thus necessitating the use of freight trains to get deliveries through. Here in Maine, you either got logging trucks, land movers, plow tucks, or freight trains. However, snow will derail a train in seconds, and huge 12 foot drifts will cover a track in a matter of minutes (whether it has snowed recently or not – the wind moved the snow, even weeks after the snowing has stopped). For that reason, there are snow plows, even bigger than the plow trucks themselves. These plows are attached to the fronts of the train and gobble up the snow as the train moves. Here are three different types of train plows:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/2706699401_b75da2ebb9.jpg
http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/mow/plow5.jpg
http://www.ovar.ca/Railfan/cn/cn55550_caboose_plow.jpg
WOW! I just realized how big my answer got – it’s almost a novel in itself! LOL! I had better stop writing before I overload NaNo’s servers with this one post!
Well, in any case, I hope that helps you out some. Good luck with your story!
Find Out More About My 2009 NaNoWriMo Project
What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!
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