That's a topic best left to forums other than TB.
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Another Wisconsin questions thread: winter roads
- Thread starter MattZilla
- Start date
That's a topic best left to forums other than TB.
It's more than just difficult driving conditions, particularly in the more rural northern half of the state. Residents tend to get mentally brittle by the end of winter, which typically spans from November through April around Lake Superior.
We lived there for about 5 years until my wife finally had enough of winter and demanded we move back to lllinois.
I convinced her that it was unusual for there to be more than 5 feet of snow on the ground and for it to be -25⁰F and we should just stick it out until spring.
The very next year it had snowed 7 feet and our garage was literally buried under a mountain of accumulated snow and we had to park in the street until late April.
That February, a brutal cold snap kept us below 0⁰F for two weeks straight, with the temperature sometimes dropping below -35⁰F. It was actually dangerous to go outside for more than a few minutes without completely layering up with clothes and wearing proper artic gear.
The wife abruptly took our daughter and left. She stayed at my folks house in Illinois until I could find a new job and a place for us to live and rejoin her.
The cold and snow beat her up so bad that she literally couldn't take it anymore and had to leave.
Lots if my friends there resort to various mechanisms for coping. For some, it involves drinking alcohol every day. Others simply leave for warmer climates until spring. The ones who seem to do the best, are the ones who make a priority of socializing with others in the community on a weekly basis, despite the snow and cold. They find ways to meet somewhere accessible to all and participate in some group activity that usually involves food and beverage, but no alcohol.
There are other, more creative ways that I've seen for area residents to keep from going nuts in the winter, but I won't detail them here.
I believe that's the Wisconsin state-mandated pastime ...
Just guessing but it was probably one of those years that ended in an integer.
Winter of '95 - '96 (132" of snow)
Winter of '96 - '97 (150" of snow)
Those are the official numbers for the Ashland, Wisconsin area, according to the National Weather Service.
150 inches is 12½ feet. That's a lot of snow.
Even though it was spread out over 5 months' it still piles up pretty high by the end of winter.
By March, I was having to shovel snow from my driveway into a wheelbarrow and then haul it into the back alley and dump it there because the snow was piled up too high around the driveway and garage and there was literally no more room to toss any more on top. The garage collapsed under the weight of snow in January but I had quit using it before then because I expected that to happen.
I had tried to keep up with removing snow from the garage but it became impossible after the snow on the ground around it rose to higher than the garage roof, itself.
Except for a few extremely severe days here and there, I never had trouble driving anywhere in my Subaru wagon. The AWD with snow tires was fantastic. I could power through 4" - 6" of snow without too much difficulty and the capable plow truck drivers did a fantastic job of keeping the main roads clear in nearly every snowstorm. It was only when we got a massive blizzard with a heavy dumping of snow mixed with high winds causing deep snow drifts that they couldn't keep up.
Crucially they tend to not use salt.
Salt works great in a city environment where you need to melt a few inches of snow in a hurry and the temperature is just below freezing.
But it's not that useful when you're getting more than a few inches of snow or when the temperature drops below 10⁰F.
All it does is destroy your car.
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I like Watertown and the whole 1000 Island area.... problem is, it's still NY.
According to your profile, you're in the CNY area.... can you be a little more specific as to where you are??
My son is north of Syracuse, straight up 81. We go there often, possible to meet up sometime for a beer and some Bass talk??
Those were great winters for us as kids a few states over. We’d dug tunnels all over the yard. The school taking us to the mountains for ski club and perfect snow twice a week. It was actually cold enough that we didn’t sweat up our boots. Though, I think 95-96 was the impetus for my dad & uncle ditching their station wagons and getting trucks. All the women in the family were already in Jeeps or Explorers with an onion tied to their belts.
The wife freaking out sounds awful for the whole family all around. You guys still together?
If I get the job, I guess I will have to have space for a lifted old something or other to be stored & maintained for if/when there’s a rough week.
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In 1996, my daughter was 3 years old and I took her sledding for the first time. We lived in Bayfield and there was an alley behind my house that ran for about 10 blocks. The entire town is on the side of a steep hill, so kids would sled down the alley in the winter, using lookouts for any cars that happened to be driving through intersections from the alley to the main roads.
It wasn't just for kids. Lots of teenagers and even some adults would do this. I wasn't the only one out there riding on a sled in the streets with my kid on my lap.
I get through the long northern Wisconsin winter by looking forward to one of the first signs of spring.
That sign is when da Yooper girls come down out of the Porcupine Mountains in the U.P. in search of mates in Wisconsin.
That sign is when da Yooper girls come down out of the Porcupine Mountains in the U.P. in search of mates in Wisconsin.
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Best winter beater I ever had was a 93 Grand Cherokee...... I paid a whopping $200 for it.
It had the 4.0 under the hood and was the Quadra Trac version..... aka, full time 4x4. I put a set of Goodyear MT/R mud tires on it and there want anything that thing couldn't go through.
My daughter had a 99 old model Cherokee with the Quadra-Trac version 4x4. I put new Wrangler tires on it right before an 18-inch wet snow storm and drove that Cherokee all around our lake to break trail for others...never spun a tire in 2 miles through 18 inches of snow.
Jeep rules!
