Snow is a great thing. It falls so gently, and looks so beautiful. When we have trouble with it, it’s usually because of the wind, not the snow itself.

*The Bible says that God has unlocked the treasures of the snow. Robert Frost wrote about stopping by woods on a snowy evening. Irving Berlin sang of a white Christmas. Mitch Miller (of Rochester!) jollied us all along with choruses of “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” All of us have watched it form a winter wonderland.

*Snow falls in beloved, long-remembered picture books: “The Big Snow,” by Berta and Elmer Hader; “Katy and the Big Snow,” by Virginia Lee Burton; “City in Winter,” by Eleanor Shick; “The Snowy Day,” by Ezra Jack Keats.

*Snow comes in many forms, including cylinders and needles. It may fall as the ball-shaped graupel so beloved by skiers (because it’s smooth and slick).

*When most of us think of snow, we think of flakes. Of all the trillions that fall, each one crystallizes into a different shape – no two snowfalkes are alike.

*The man who demonstrated this to most everyone’s satisfaction was Snowflake Bentley, who as a Vermont farm lad begged his parents for a camera… an expense his mother suported, but his father forever resented. Working in the cold, he took thousands of glass-plate images of snowflakes. Naturalist Edwin Way Teale wrote that of all the men of science whose lives had overlapped his own, he most regretted never meeting Snowflake Bentley.

*Sometimes, of course, it’s too much of a good thing. Winter weather disasters can take many forms: deep snow; high winds; low temperatures; ice; flooding from snowmelt and icemelt. We’ve seen them all.

*Snow crushed the roof of Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church on January 25, 1877, wrecking the building, a former Corning schoolhouse, beyond repair. Five feet and four inches of snow had fallen since the last thaw, and country roads were snowbound on every hand.

*On March 11 of 1888, a blizzard got under way — and kept going for fifty hours. Twenty-eight inches of snow fell locally, the mercury hit ten below, the telegraph failed, and the trains were four days late. Despite all that, our area got off fairly easily from the infamous Blizzard of 1888. New York City and New England were paralyzed. Something like 800 people died… plus more on ships at sea. The East River froze. Horses died in their traces. Even out here, it was a very bad storm.

*Folks in the Corning-Campbell area could learn to dread December 17. A two-day blizzard started on that date in 1890, dumping two feet of snow that drifted even higher in strong winds, blocking the roads and stopping the trains. And on that same date in 1901 Painted Post was under four feet of water, even as thermometers plunged to four below, marking a drop of 68 degrees since three days earlier.

*A 1935 ice storm, combined with high winds, broke down trees in Bath’s Pulteney Park (which had already been flooded in July).

*A snowstorm on February 14, 1940, buried parked cars. The girls at Davenport orphanage in Bath went to school by sleigh for a week. Snow was still (or again) on the ground in April.

*On February 16, 1958, we were on the second day of a two-day blizzard that drifted snow as tall as fifteen feet; Prattsburgh children could reach above the telephone wires. Trains hit piles of snow outside the villages, and stopped. Families suffered without medical care and ran low on food waiting days until the roads could be opened again.

*On March 13 in 1993, snow started falling. And it kept on. And on. And on. By 5 PM all the roads were officially closed. Governor Mario Cuomo declared a statewide state of emergency. By the time it ended, folks were coming and going through their windows, rather than doors. The snow fell on Saturday, and school reopened on Thursday. No lives were lost locally in what, at the time, they called the storm of the century. The Emergency Broadcast Network was actually activated for the first time.

*On January 19, 1996 a combination of snow melt, heavy rain, and frozen ground suddenly meant lots of water – everywhere. Kanona, Corning, Campbell, and the whole Route 415 corridor suddenly found itself with way too much water. Roads were blocked, and fields were flooded. Let’s hope for a gentler winter this time!