STEWARTSTOWN, N.H. (AP) – For all the talk about Concord approaching the all-time record for snowfall, the numbers don’t come close to what one northern New Hampshire town regularly experiences.
Stewartstown, located on the western edge of Coos county near where Vermont meets Canada, is notoriously snowy. As of Friday morning, a total of 228 inches of snow had fallen this winter. That’s more than 19 feet, and twice the amount that has fallen in Concord.
“That’s enough to bury your tractor, by golly,” said Art Lester from the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.
Forget shovels; it takes a tractor to clear up that much snow. Yvon Giroux estimates he’s used his John Deere tractor and loader at least 20 times this year to clear the snow from the front of his barn.
“Sometimes I do it in the morning and I have to do it again at night,” said Giroux, 74.
Mildred Roy, who has been tracking the weather from her yard for the National Weather Service for 25 years, said it’s unusual for her home to get less than 200 inches in a year. But this year has been a real doozy, she said.
“Everybody’s getting tired of it,” she said. “Absolutely. They are waiting for spring in no uncertain terms – including me.”
Charlie Towle, who owns a market near a popular snowmobiling trail said business has been down because for once, Stewartstown doesn’t have a monopoly on snow. Everybody’s got plenty this year, he said.
In Concord, snowfall has reached 112 inches, the 4th snowiest winter. The record is 122 inches, set in the winter of 1873-74.
—
Information from: Concord Monitor, http://www.cmonitor.com
AP-ES-03-22-08 1243EDT
Send questions/comments to the editors.
