May Snow: So What?

My favorite description of winter: "cold, white misery." Especially after six months of it in this neck of the woods.

Here in the Lake Champlain / Adirondack region some people are upset or surprised by seeing snow in May. This year it snowed on Mother's Day, May 9th. There was that damn white stuff on springtime tulips in the higher elevations, places like up dere in Vermontville.

So far May 2010 has produced a good share of cold, wintry weather. And it won't surprise me if we have a repeat of May 1996. Back then we had a double whammy -- it snowed on both Mother's Day and soon after Memorial Day. Here's the evidence (click on image to enlarge):



The excerpts above are taken from the book, Adirondack Weather by Jerome S. Thaler (2004). Page 60 lists the recorded extremes for May from all available records. May 12th, 1996 -- Mother's Day that year -- saw 5 inches of snow in two days in Wanakena. And the next day, May 13th, Raybrook was greeted with half a foot of the powdery nuisance. I think the word "Mother" was invoked a few times back then but not in observance of the holiday.

And to round out a perfect month, May 29th, 1996 was the day for two inches to drop on Lake Placid. Memorial Day weekend was the 25th - 27th that year. Maybe this year the snow will fall during the holiday weekend. What a way to celebrate: snowflakes sizzling on your outdoor grill.

Not to say that this area is the only place for May snow and the ensuing extension of the hibernation habit. Years ago I was student at SUNY-Morrisville, a two year college located in the middle of nowhere between Syracuse and Utica, central New York State. One day in the first week of May I got up and opened the blinds in my door dorm. The sun was glaring, intense from the layer of snow that covered everything. Bright but cold. No melting snow. I closed the blinds and went back to sleep. Class wasn't that important.