What should be outstanding in the field this time of year? When I was young, it was a common practice to use fencing made of wire and wooden pickets to create a temporary snow fence. If you are over 50 and lived in northern Illinois, you should remember the snowstorms that Mother Nature unleashed from 1977-1982.
That was a great time to be a kid if you loved playing in the snow. I perfected the art of building snow forts and making tunnels through the snow. Unfortunately, my dad also saw to it that I perfected my ability to shovel snow with an aluminum scoop shovel. One winter my dad had to hire the wheel loader from the nearby quarry to push snow drifts back. The drifts from the prevailing north and west winds had swallowed the farmstead, and there was no way the shelling crew could access the corncribs that needed to be emptied.
The next year he installed a string of snow fencing 200’ out in the field on the windward side of his 3 corncribs. I helped him as he installed the 4’ tall fencing about 2’ off the ground. Sure enough, the snow came again that year and the wind blew some amazingly huge drifts on the leeward side of that fencing. That was the year I learned a lot about the aerodynamics of wind. In later years I learned how a farmstead windbreak of trees and shrubs creates a wind free safe haven for farm buildings from Mother Nature’s brutal winter winds and blowing snow.
Several years ago a friend that had recently moved to the country sought my advice on his snow fence. He had strung the fence 4’ away from the length of his driveway. That winter the fence caught all the blowing snow as it came across the yard and dropped it right on his driveway. It was a big mistake. I informed him that the snowdrop area behind a fence is a minimum of 20 times the height of the fence. My friend would have been better off with no fence at all.
Today, on January 5, 2022, the wrath of winter finally arrived. Only an inch of snow with single digit temperatures and 40 mph plus winds turned the rural countryside into a driver’s nightmare. I witnessed another misuse of a snow fence. Municipal workers had made an attempt to keep the snow from blowing out of the fields and onto the roads. Their fence was actually making it worse.
In this situation the only way to correctly install the fence would be to acquire permission from the farmer and install the fencing at least 80′ from the road. The fence is indeed working perfectly, except it is too close to the road. The only way to keep the snowdrift off of the roads in most situations is to have the snow fencing outstanding in the field a long way from the road.
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