March 16--Boston is officially having its snowiest winter on record, federal officials announced Sunday.
The snow-beleaguered city had received 108.6 inches this season as of Sunday evening, the National Weather Service said. Boston set its old record of 107.6 inches during the winter of 1995-96.
With such intense snowfall, the city often hasn't been able to just plow streets and call it a day. Workers must also remove the excess snow, liquefying it with snow-melting machines or dumping truckload after truckload into lots called snow farms.
In a video posted by the city last month, a worker identified only as Kevin stands in one such snow farm, near a white mound that dwarfs the industrial vehicles adding to it.
"Three days ago there was nothing here," he explains. "Now we're at 25,000 cubic yards that we trucked in here two nights ago. And we're continuing the operation daily, basically 16 to 18 hours a day, sometimes 24."
The winter came as quite a shock for Michael Moreno. The 21-year-old, who works at the front desk at the Copley Square Hotel, had moved to Boston from Dallas just last June.
At the house he rents, the season's first big snowstorm posed a problem. "I had to shovel it all by hand and it took me eight hours straight," Moreno said. Things are better now, he said: A neighbor felt sorry for him and offered to lend him a snowblower.
The first-timer described experiencing the weather as something of a revelation. "When the blizzards hit, it's like a whiteout," he said. "You're pretty much just hibernating until it's over, and when you can see out -- you can see everything -- you're kind of just in awe. If you're not used to it, it can leave you breathless."
The winter made an impression even on lifelong Bostonians.
"You know, it was crazy," said Joseph Thomas, 55. "Every other day, every other weekend it was blizzards. You couldn't walk. Cabs wouldn't stop. The MBTA [transit system] was shut down."
He said Eddie C's, where he works as a bartender, managed to open daily, but customers didn't always show up. "For the month of February it was dead," he said. How would he like next winter to be? "Not like this."
It has been a season of extremes across the U.S.
Even as Boston broke its snow record, Southern California experienced unseasonably hot weather.
On Sunday, downtown Los Angeles reached 90 degrees, a record high for the date. The heat wave caused organizers of the Los Angeles Marathon to move the starting time up 30 minutes.
This post will be updated with additional information.
UPDATES
7:15 p.m.: This post has been updated with comments from Joseph Thomas.
6:47 p.m.: This post has been updated with comments from Michael Moreno.
5:33 p.m.: This post has been updated with information about snow farms.
The first version of this post was published at 5:07 p.m.
