Snow Days: A Mess to Save Us From the Drought?

February 27, 2013

It seems that every couple of years now, we get a blast of snow from a huge storm system. I remember two years ago, while still in college, thinking how crazy it was that my university classes were cancelling, but here we are again; k-12 and colleges all around the metro area cancelled classes three times in the span of a few days.

Last week's snow storm brought us about 9.2 inches of freezing arctic landscape. This week's storm gave us another 13 inches in some areas, and by the looks of some space photography, what's been left behind in the Denver region is visible from space.

As of February 19, Platte County was still in a severe drought state. But with the recent snowfall, how far have we moved towards getting out of the snow? They say that 10 inches of rain equates 1 inch of snow, but that's not always the case. Yesterday's system left us with a lot of heavy, wet snow; I know, because my snow blower was having trouble about half-way through the drive. It wouldn't actually blow the snow but kind of lob globs of slush. It wasn't a shining moment for the poor machine, but we made it through the day.

To find out how much the snowfall has impacted the region's drought, we'll have to melt the snow to get an accurate reading of the actual liquid precipitation we received. According to Wundergound, we received about 1 inch of rainfall from last Thursday. All in all, we may not be out of the drought, but at least we've got some moisture to start us up the hill to recovering from the dry climate.

I was lucky enough to stay inside reading an awesome steampunk story about a detective and his steam-driven assistant, reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes novel. With all of the yucky snow still out, you may opt to stay inside. One cool thing you can do from home is participate in Read Across America on March 1st. But if you're feeling the cabin fever setting in, come out to the Parkville Branch to celebrate children's literacy during storytime!

~Cody C.
Parkville Branch