It only took more than half a year after the last snowfall, but it looks like “wintah’s ovah” in Boston.
According to a July 15 CNN article, Boston’s gargantuan snow pile managed to linger until mid-July. It’s an appropriate ending to one of the most brutal winters the city had seen in its history.
To commemorate the disappearance of the last snows on July 14, Mayor Marty Walsh held a barbecue at City Hall Plaza. At the event, Walsh announced the winners of the “Snow Melt Challenge,” a contest which challenged Bostonians to correctly guess the date on which the snow would melt.
A good deal of the record-shattering 110.6 inches of snow that hit Boston this winter was confined to a “snow farm” along the waterfront in the Seaport district. Massive snow pushers, containment plows and heavy duty snow plows brought snow to this location from across the city.
The snow pushers brought more than snow to Seaport, however; CNN reports that barrels, bicycles, parking meters and even fire hydrants were scooped up over the winter, as the snows piled too high in the streets for these objects to be seen.
The hundreds of tons of trash contained within the snow pile actually helped insulate the snow from the sun’s rays, making the melting process even slower than usual. Additionally, a cooler-than-usual spring season allowed the ice and snow pile to melt slower than it should have.
At its peak, the snow pile stood 75 feet high. The snow mound became so notorious that it even has its own Twitter, @SouthieSnowPile.
“I’ll be back soon enough, Marty! Should we say November?” the account tweeted on July 14.
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