I'd never heard of Oswego until I read this story, Winter pummels upstate New York community, by Bruce Frassinelli in the Pocono Record. Maybe it's the fact that I love photography, but what caught my eye was the amazing photograph on the newspaper's website of a van, with about a metre of snow on its roof, driving on Route 104 through the city of Oswego. Naturally enough, I read the accompanying story.It's a bit surreal, on a 30-degree day during a hot, dry Australian summer (in the middle of a severe drought, too) to read about unprecedented snow on the other side of the world. Bruce's article is a must-read, whether you live in the US or not.
One sentence in his report says: ``The National Weather Service's prediction for more snow could break Oswego's all-time, one-storm total of 102 inches in 1966. I'd never heard of ``lake-effect'' either, and he describes it in clear terms. It is a narrow band along which snowstorms are raging, while outside the slender band, the sun is shining. For those unfamiliar with lake-effect, it seems inconceivable that within a narrow band just 10 or 15 miles wide, snowfall rates of up to five- to six-inches an hour could be raging, while outside of the band, the sun could be shining.
And while residents are battening down the hatches, the media has been flying in to report first-hand on the conditions. Among teams that have descended on the area are representatives from `Good Morning America', The Weather Channel and CNN.
Thanks, Bruce, for putting it in perspective for us in the southern hemisphere.
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