Dictionary

A New Englanders guide to winter terms.

Frost heave- No this is not when you are so sick of the frosty cold that you feel you might lose your lunch. These are the wonderful moguls that appear on any, and from my perspective all, paved roads in the winter. Water sneaks down a tiny little crack, builds up, freezes, and pushes the road up.


Pot holes- Often created when a plow truck goes barreling down a frost heave ridden road. Some are large enough to lose a small car in, but if you're lucky it will be filled with ice for most of the winter.


Plowable storm: It snows so much here that have created a minimum standard at which point we will plow. Usually over four inches. Art and I will not usually do anything unless it is over six. The snowblower doesn't come out unless it's over eight.


Squall- a short lived but wicked nasty storm that tears through dropping snow and blowing anything over that is not tied down.


Plow Mail Box: I have included a picture because I know many of you are skeptical. We have lost our mailbox at the shop three times this year (alone) to our friendly neighborhood plow trucks... Ggggrrrrr... We are making one of these in the spring.


Reduced Salt Area- No this is not a healthy alternative meal plan. In New England if you don't use salt to melt the snow off the roads you will very quickly not be able to find them. They use more elbow grease and less salt in areas with drinking water nearby, however. These roads are usually very slick and what may be a four lane road in summer may be a single lane by mid=February. The good news (or maybe it's bad news...) is that you get a new car every six years!

Nor'Easter- The mother of all storms. A wicked bad storm that usually starts in the early morning, snows and blows its way through the day and next night, etc. and so forth for up to three or four days. The storm hits the ocean then wraps back around dumping ungodly amounts of white stuff all at once. I have seen multiple inches per hour, and multiple feet in a storm.

Wicked bad- I am pretty sure this term started in relation to the weather, which is frequently just that.


Mud season- Even though we are done plowing, snowblowing, shoveling, scraping, slipping and sliding, we have run out of room to put all the snow and the wood pile is running low we appreciate every last day of cold because the next season to come is mud season. AKA- spring. When the rains come to melt all this snow that is what we have for April, May, and into June...

Sun silly- My favorite! This is what you get when that sun makes a rare, and long overdue appearance! Many New Englanders will run outside with their shorts on to celebrate...