The last, really last, vestige of Winter

   A few years ago when we had the two monster February snows I noticed something that has made me look for the last signs of Winter each year.  That year one of the snow removal companies had to dump the extra snow over the bank behind the parking lot they cleared.  Unfortunately this extra snow created a mountain of snow that covered the path along Dobbin Road on which I run regularly.  I wondered how long I would have to run around this pile before it melted.  With the melting and freezing that occurred in March that year the "snow mountain" turned to ice which made it last even longer.  I monitored the snow pile for a couple of months before it finally disappeared completely on April 15th-tax day.  Each year since then I have looked for another snow mountain left in a parking lot to see how long it takes to melt away and take the last signs of winter with it.  With this weekend's warm weather we hopefully have seen the snow ground cover leave most areas and the grass should soon start to become green again. But before we see these signs of Spring I want to nominate my choice this year for the last snow pile in Howard County to melt. This is the one pictured below in the parking lot of Target.

    To get a really good one to follow you have to find a large parking lot where they use a front end loader to build these mountains of snow.  I will monitor this Mt. Target and report how long it lasts.  I don't think it will beat the April 15th date.  If you know of any snow piles in our County that may beat Mt. Target let me know

P.S.
 

 
  Another sign of the changing seasons is what is for sale outside of Wegman's this week.  Last week they had snow shovels and rock salt.

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