My best guess is that we had between 24 and 30 inches of snow (see note at end of post). Today the temperature got above freezing, and the snow settled down some. But there is still a lot of snow on the ground. Some of the snow piles left by plows along the streets towered five or more feet above the road surface.
Our neighborhood, known as Cohasset Village, is a business district with on-street parking. The huge snow piles lining the streets took up much of the parking. So tonight, town employees and contractors are here in the Village with one large tractor with a bucket loader, three medium-size bucket loaders, one of those little mini bucket loaders, several police cars, and a long line of dump trucks. The little bucket loader climbs up on the sidewalk and pushes the snow into the street. The medium size bucket loaders carry the snow to a central collection point, the junction of Elm and Main streets, two doors down from our apartment. Then the big bucket loader scoops the snow into the waiting dump trucks, as one by one they drive up, get loaded, and drive off again. Our second floor apartment is the perfect place to watch the action.
Carol watched a murder mystery on TV. I thought it was more fun to watch the snow being pushed around and loaded in dump trucks — showing that I still haven’t gotten over my preschool fascination with heavy equipment at work.
For the record, the National Weather Service (NWS) received the following reports of snow depth:
Nearby reports from trained NWS spotters:
West Bridgewater, 30.0 in, 0504 PM 02/23
Rockland, 20.7 in, 0348 PM 02/23 [N.B.: at this time, it was still snowing heavily]
Other nearby reports received by NWS (not checked for accuracy):
North Scituate, 32.0 in, 0617 PM 02/23
Hingham, 17.5 in, 0500 PM 02/23
I would tend to discount the untrained reporters; the high winds would have made it difficult to take an accurate measurement of snow depth unless you had some training. Assuming the trained spotter in Rockland received another few inches, our nearby area appears to have gotten between 24 and 30 inches of snow.