Get your own Free
Home Page
Published Feb. 05, 1997, in The Post-Standard.
By SEAN KIRST
Snow. Paul Scott lives for it. That's why he moved to Montague, up on Tug Hill. "Ordinary things are dull," Scott said. "To a lot of people, getting lots of snow can be very exciting. It makes life interesting."
Life got even more interesting for Scott Tuesday. Montague, with 47 souls within its borders, is the state's smallest town. Scott lives three-quarters of a mile from the nearest neighbor. You can't get to his house unless you're wearing snowshoes. His phone rang in the morning. It was Jane Clift, over at the Montague Inn.
A SWAT team of national meteorologists was in town. The members wanted to talk to Scott about the Jan. 12 storm in Montague. Tug Hill weather spotter Bill Ottoshavett recorded the most snow that ever fell in 24 hours, in any state except Alaska. Experts in Colorado, which had the old record, questioned how he came up with the total.
It is a big enough deal that the National Weather Service assembled this commission of big snow. They are in Montague to interview the locals. Today, they'll meet with Ottoshavett, who measured 77 inches of snow.
The whole thing was very hush-hush. Local meteorologists were asked not to reveal the details of when the team would visit. In Montague, bureaucracy goes in the septic tank. Clift, early Tuesday, happily revealed exactly when the team was showing up.
She was asked if a photographer could come by to take pictures. "Sure!" She loves the whole crazy pingpong game surrounding the big snow.
After the total was reported, weather service officials said 1.) it could be a record; 2.) it is a record, 3.) maybe Silver Lake, Colo., the old record-holder, didn't get the credit for the snow it really got; and 4.) nothing was official until the commission checked the snowy knoll.
That's where we are today. All of it is beautiful, as far as Clift's concerned. Every time the feds change their minds, it keeps Tug Hill in the national news.
"I think it's great," Clist said. "I think it's about time people found out what we have up here."
Which is snow. That's why Scott moved there. He likes to stand at the window, watching the blue jays fight their way to his bird feeder. He likes the challenge of cleaning piles of white powder from his driveway.
For his own pleasure, he also measures snowfall on a table on his deck. They knew about that at the Montague Inn. That's why his phone rang Tuesday. The experts wanted to check Scott's figures against those of Ottoshavett.
They matched.
"Funny thing is, I didn't think it was so extraordinary," Scott said. "We always get a hell of a lot of snow."
He met in the town barn with the commission, including Bob Leffler, a big cheese with the weather service in Washington, and Colorado climatologist Nolan Doesken. They asked about wind and drifting and the way Scott measured snow.
Scott felt himself among kindred souls.
They're curious
"I don't think they're skeptical," he said. "I think they're curious. I think they'd be just as interested if someone said they got 12 inches of rain in an hour."
Not everyone is so cheery. Weather officials in Buffalo get a little grumpy about the visit, since they feel the commission doubts their word. Ottoshavett declines to comment until a final decision is made. He knows some experts from the west called it "fishy" that the old record was exceeded by an inch, as if God turned on the juice to beat the buzzer.
Others in Montague smile at the flap. The visit simply reaffirms why all 47 of them live there. Scott summed it up during an interview Tuesday. "You know what?" he said abruptly. "It's snowing like the devil!"
- Sean Kirst is a columnist for The Post-Standard.
Get your own Free
Home Page