Measuring snow.

January 16

8 A. M. — Down railroad, measuring snow, having had one bright day since the last flake fell; but, as there was a crust which would bear yesterday (as to-day), it cannot have settled much. 

January 16, 2026

The last storms have been easterly and northeasterly. Why so much (five and one half inches) more now in the woods than on the 12th, as compared with open fields? Was the driving snow caught in a small wood, or did it settle less in the rain there, or since the snow on account of bushes? 

I hear flying over (and see) a snow bunting, -- a clear loud tcheep or tcheop, sometimes rapidly trilled or quavered, -- calling its mates. 

With this snow the fences are scarcely an obstruction to the traveller; he easily steps over them. Often they are buried. 

I suspect it is two and a half feet deep in Andromeda Swamps now. 

The snow is much deeper in yards, roads, and all small inclosures than in broad fields.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 16, 1856

Why so much (five and one half inches) more now in the woods than on the 12th, as compared with open fields? See January 12, 1856 ("Other things being equal, the snow should be deeper in woods than in open fields because the trunks of trees take up room there  but . . . Probably there is less snow in the woods than in open land.")

I hear flying over (and see) a snow bunting.  See January 21, 1857 ("Beside their rippling note, they have a vibratory twitter, and from the loiterers you hear quite a tender peep, as they fly after the vanishing flock."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Bunting (Emberiza nivalis) 

With this snow the fences are scarcely an obstruction.  See January 14, 1856 ("Boys, etc., go about straddling the fences, on the crust."); January 15, 1856 ("The snow appears considerably deeper than the 12th . . . not only fences but trees are obviously shortened . . . You are sensible that you are walking at a level a foot or more above the usual one."); February 18, 1856 ("I go in any direction across the fields, stepping over the fences.")

I suspect it is two and a half feet deep in Andromeda Swamps now. See January 12, 1856 ("I carry a four-foot stick marked in inches, striking it down as far as it will go at every tenth step . . . Though the snow is only ten inches deep on a level, farmers affirm that it is two feet deep"); January 29, 1856 ("Measure the snow in the same places measured the 16th and 23d . . . the snow is probably about fourteen on a level in open fields now, or quite as deep as at any time this winter . . . Since the 13th there has been at no time less than one foot on a level in open fields."); February 12, 1856 ("From January 13th to February 7th, not less than sixteen inches on a level at any one time in open land, and still there is fourteen on a level. That is, for twenty-five days the snow was sixteen inches deep in open land!!”) Compare December 30, 1853 ("I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday in Abiel Wheeler's wood by the railroad, near the pond. In going a quarter of a mile it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches. Then went to Potter's wood . . . and paced straight through a level wood where there was no drift perceptible, measuring at every ten paces for two hundred paces, and the average was twenty and one half inches.")

January 16  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 16

Snow is much deeper 

in yards roads and inclosures 

than in the broad fields.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022