SNOW PHOTOS WINTER 07

     One of the most incredible periods of snowfall ever seen in Western Kansas began with rain the night of December 19, 2006 with rain and freezing rain continuing the next day, then turning to snow the morning of December 21.  A total of 1.61" of precipitation was measured in the rain gauge from the rain and 7" of snow.  Some melting took place that week with about 4'' still on the ground on December 28.  The forecast that morning was for a snowstorm over Colorado, Wyoming and SW Nebraska with snow likely in Western Kansas.  By late afternoon drizzle began and turned to heavy wet snow the following day.  Heavy periods of wet snow with winds of 15 to 30 mph and temperatures mostly in the twenties did not make this a blizzard.  One could tell, though, that this was some kind of snow never before experienced since after the first day it was knee deep everywhere.  There was complete snow cover until March 10, a period of 79 days.

     Sunday morning the 31st the sun was out and one could finally see that snowdrifts didn't matter much because it was as deep as a snowdrift everywhere.  It was estimated that at least 3 feet of snow fell and measurements taken in the following weeks indicate that is not an exaggeration.  The water content of more than 6"  would indicate a snow equivalent of about 6 feet.  The photos in the following album track the progress of the melting of the snow.  A side note of this winter is that on December 16 the high temperature for the day was 47 degrees.  The daily maximum temperature did not reach 50 degrees until March 7 or for 81 days or 22% of one year.

December 31, 2006

The packed snow is 4 feet deep on the average

Sunday morning shortly after sunrise and the power was off too since Saturday noon.  Fortunately the standby was ready.

Starting to dig out Sunday morning

Monday and Tuesday were spent trying to open driveways

Wednesday, January 3 late afternoon

Wednesday morning the county opened the road (above) with a crawler and dozer and came through the deep snow in our driveway so that we were able to then use our tractor with the dozer and our utility tractor with the scoop to finally open our driveway to the road by evening.

January 22

February 18, approximately 5 inches new snow fell last week

The column below on the left was a core taken from the above location on February 21.  The column on the right was the water content of the core sample after it was melted down.

Left below 14" February 24         Right 14" March 2              

County road by our house March 3

Same spot from other direction March 5

March 7, still 11 inches with 4.2 inches water

March 12, after 81 days, the snow is all gone!

(back to top of page)