> This ought to make it obvious that I am imagining snow season as being like our rainy season, in the sense that for several months of the year you can almost guarantee that in any given 24-hour period it will rain at least once.

New England isn't really like that, either with snow or rain. I think the frequency and duration of precipitation depends more on the area you're in than the precipitation type. I went to Florida for a week in October a few years ago, and it rained every day for like 15 minutes. Each and every time, Leen and I were figuring, "Oh no, figured it would rain on our vacation," and braced ourselves for an entire rainy day. Then it cleared up. Once it poured so hard there seemed to be more water in the air than actual air; we were stranded underneath a teeny overhang in EPCOT and got so wet anyway that we figured, hey, why not just stick it with the failed keeping-dry thing and go out in it? So we waded out into the open and became even more drenched than we were. A half hour later, *that* was gone, the skies were blue, and people were out and about again.

In New England, precipitation, whatever the type, tends to last for several hours if not a full day at a time. Light rains or light snows can last for an hour and quit, but we practically never have *heavy* or even moderate precipitation that clears up fast.

On the other hand, it's not unusual to go 1-2 weeks without any precipitation at all, and it's not unheard of to go 3-4 weeks without any. Sometimes the snow on the ground gets pretty cruddy (as mounds of snow by the roadslide melt, the snow goes away but the dirt that the plows scoop up with it doesn't) because there hasn't been any new snow in a while.

Recently, we've had quite a bit. A dusting fell today, in such a brief time that I barely noticed. Last night a half inch fell. Yesterday was reasonably dry, but the day before and the day before that, a big storm blew in that dumped 20 inches. The day before that had a few inches. A few days before that had a few inches. Christmas Day, there was a storm so big, we could barely drive home from Leen's parents house, because visibility was nothing, the road markings were covered, and traction was non-existent.

You don't want to drive long distances during a heavy snow storm, and if you aren't experienced in driving in snow, you don't want to drive in it at all. Driving aside, I have to disagree with all the naysayers here: if you want to experience New England snow, you *must* see it when it's actually snowing.