Quote:
Originally Posted by FloridaGuy83
Hello all,
I have an offer for a job near Provo, and as you can tell from my username, I'm from Florida. I was born and raised in Florida, and I've never had to deal with snow before. I once drove through the Smoky mountains in North Carolina when it started to snow late at night, and I was scared to death, and had to pull over and get a hotel room after about 5 minutes of driving in it.
I am just wondering how big of a setback it is day in and day out of dealing with the snow. Is there snow cover during a good majority of the winter, or does it usually melt, or what? Is shoveling snow an everyday thing in the winter? Any details would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you.
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Provo's a great town! You'll love it (if you take the job)!
Snow is not a major setback here. Certainly not day in and day out. Snow cover is spotty through the winter. We'll get snow storms that will gradually drop snow for, at most, four days or so at a time. When the snow first starts (especially for the first snow of the season), everyone drives slower and more cautiously. Getting places takes longer than it otherwise does. And while the snow is falling, there's usually a tendency for traffic to move a bit slower.
Once the snow stops falling (which usually takes about a day, but as I said, can last up to four), the sun will usually come back out. Now, it often stays pretty cold, so the snow won't often all melt at once. But within 24 hours of the end of the storm, all the roads and sidewalks will be clear. The snow will stay on the grass a bit longer. Usually for a week or two, depending on the ambient temperature and where the snow is. The sun shines mostly from the southwest in the wintertime, due to the latitude and the mountains to the east, so snow that's shaded from the southwest won't melt for a long time.
Lately we've had very mild winters. The winter of '90-'91 was cold (it was cold all over the West — frost took a lot of oranges in Claifornia that year) — we had one stretch where it never got above 32° for 40 days. When it's like that, you get long-lasting snowpack on the ground, even in the valleys. But this last winter, we had rain during every winter month. We also had snow, of course, but when it rains in January, you know it's pretty warm. Rain melts snow pretty quick, when it comes.
The worst ice, though, can happen when it rains in the evening and then freezes at night. Especially if it rains all day, so the sun never really comes out, and then the clouds blow over in the early night. Then what little heat is built up during the day sheds right off into outer space (instead of getting trapped under the clouds) at night, and it gets cold. And the water everywhere freezes into black ice. You can also see incredible amounts of ice if it's foggy at night, but that's a lot rarer.
Shoveling snow is not an everyday thing. I wish it were. I love to shovel snow. It's my favorite kind of yardwork. (My neighbors think I'm insane!) But there's only good shoveling when it snows, and there'll only be one or two good snowstorms a month during the winter (three if you're lucky), and each one will last one to four days. So at most, you're looking at about 8 to 12 days of good snow-shoveling in a month, and more likely around 6.
The earliest snow is usually in October and the latest is usually in March. Snow in April is hardly unheardof, though. In fact, it snowed Thursday morning, but it wasn't cold enough to stick. I have seen snow as early as September and as late as May.
RockyMtnr mentioned the public transportation system:
http://www.utabus.com/. It is quite good, for the West. There's no train in Provo at all, so you're limited to busses for public transportation. And the busses slow down along with everyone else when it's snowing, so you have to plan early. That and the fact that many routes only have busses once an hour make it so getting to work on time can mean a
very early start on snowy days, and a late return home. But the bus drivers are pretty experienced with snowy driving, so it's not scary.
You should learn how to drive on ice. I know some people recommend going to an icy parking lot late at night and making the car spin so they can learn how to control it in that situation. Lots of newcomers do that. I never tried did, and I wouldn't recommend it, but it is good to know about driving on ice.
Basically, you only slide on ice (which can also be compacted snow) when you're accelerating — according to the definition of that word that you learned in high school physics. So if you're speeding up or slowing down or changing direction (either by turning or by going up or down a hill), then you might slide. If you're maintaining constant speed on a straight, flat road, then you can't really slide. So for accelerating, you just plan ahead and take it slow. If you're going to slow down or stop, start early. When starting off a red light, take it slow. When you make a turn, slow down before you turn (and start slowing early). Try not combine several forms of acceleration (like braking hard in order to make a right turn while going down a hill — that'll turn you right around for sure). Make sure you keep a good following distance on the roads, and if you've got a tailgater behind you, slow down. You'll get him angry, but you'll keep your insurance rates low. And practice braking when you're kind of away from traffic. It certainly wouldn't hurt to go to a parking lot for that.
The most sliding I see is when people are trying to get their parked cars moving. Most parking lots and streets are raised a bit right at the edges to let water run off better. Lots of folks will park (perpendicularly) right up to the edge of the lot. That way, the front end of their car is down in the gutter. Then, when they're trying to get out of their parking spot and their car is going about a quarter-mile an hour trying to go up the little hill on the ice, they get no traction and just spin their wheels until some nice pedestrian comes along and gives them a bit of a shove (sometimes with a lecture to avoid pulling that far forward when it's icy).
Now personally, I prefer snow in the winter to no snow. When it's clear in the winter here, it's usually quite a bit colder and the air pollution gets trapped behind the mountains. The air can get really bad, and that's a tredn that's been getting worse every year. Especially as BYU and UVSC (soon to be UVU) grow larger. When the roads are clear and the air is cold, everyone thinks he needs to drive — especially the poor BYU students who aren't even allowed to grow beards in the wintertime. And the pollution from all those cars just gets trapped. There was a day this last January (I think it was the 28th) when our air quality here in Provo was the worst in the United States for that day. When you live half a mile from the mountains and you can't quite see them, you know the air's dirty. And we can go weeks with really bad air in the winter. When it gets like that, you're glad to see another snowstorm roll through and sweep it all away.
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Just HOW bad is the snow in the Provo area?
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