Why snow costs America a fortune every year

saw this article and thought some others might find it interesting

https://thehustle.co/why-snow-costs-america-a-fortune-every-year/

 

I dunno. Here in the Sierras snow helps maintain our reservoir storage helping with hydro electric generation, drinking water and ag economy. Article kind of glosses over how important precipitation is to life.

Otherwise really interesting. As a teen I used to hate shoveling our driveway because if we just waited a few days the snow typically took care of itself by melting. Kind of like spending all that money on dealing with snow which disappears on its own.

 

How much revenue, and taxes, are generated by snow at ski resorts? And in the west snow in the mountains melts and keeps streams flowing all summer. Everything is a trade-off and choices have to be made. In GA it isn't financially sound to invest in a lot of snow removal equipment. They keep major roads open, but those who live in rural areas are on our own until it melts. Fortunately that is usually 24-48 hours. It is the rare event where it stays cold long enough to stick around for days.

And what is the economic impact of cooling all of those homes and businesses here in the south?

 

The interesting thing here is how we respond to snow. We salt the shit out of everything, plow as much as we can, all to clear it out of the way. I always wonder what would be the cost of not responding that way. It isn’t that hard to plan for a week without leaving the house, at least for some people. Maybe if we expected it to melt naturally after a couple of days we just let it ride?


We had a mere light coating of snow this week, and all the parking lots got salted. There was more salt than snow in our parking lot at work. Probably just out of fear of getting sued if someone falls.