SNOWMAGEDDON: Remembering a Wicked Idaho Winter
The story that drove home the severity for me was out of east Idaho. Horses were seen stranded in the deep snow, and while I believe one was rescued, the others were never seen again. For younger people and new arrivals in Idaho, the winter of 2016-2017 is a lesson in just how bad the weather can get and how quickly a pattern can change.
I bought a car in early December. The weather was beautiful. The windows were down on my test drive. On Christmas Day, I got stuck in a snow drift on Washington Street in Twin Falls. More snow came in January. A lot of snow. Some mornings were bone-chilling cold. I drove to work one day when the thermometer read 15 below zero. It was even colder in Burley, and much colder at higher elevations.
Then the snow melted. Herds of cattle drowned in fields. I drove Highway 30 to Burley in early March, and the potholes were big enough to swallow a car. I’m not exaggerating. Roads seemed to collapse throughout southern Idaho.
One very cold morning I heard a pack of coyotes wailing as I’d never heard them wail before. Fawns were decimated by the weather.
Maybe it didn’t set any records, but January of 2017 was miserable for anyone who lived through it, and we’ve measured every winter since against it.
I see a lot of headlines predicting an awful winter. Those get page clicks but also offer a reminder. I don’t know that anyone foresaw what came to be known as Idaho’s Snowmageddon. At least not a few months in advance when the long-range projections are released.