Spring Is On It's Way.

Well it is 7:30 here in Central NY. A fast moving thunderstorm just came through with 5min. of hard rain. Temp has risen 4degrees in 5 min. to 31F and still rising. From noon on we got about 1.5" of snow. Weird day. The weather girl in Utica says we will get more snow after this Tstorm passes. We really needed this little rain storm to add more weight to the roofs in the area.

ACG, same way here, snow at noon, to sleet to freezing rain at 4:30, and maybe back to snow tonight there saying. Its 29 here now, coat of ice on everything. Gotta get the ashes out tomarrow, lol. J

I never lived in snow country, just wondering why people don't make a habit out of cleaning off the roof between snow storms? Seems like you could put some sort of heater in barn roof.

We had that same goofy weather earlier in the week here in Ohio, I"ve never seen anything quite like it before in my 63 years.

Most of the problem this year is that We have had no sunshine and temps are colder this year. Large cow barns usually will unload on their own like you might have seen the Astro Dome do this week. Heat from the cows and sunshine usually takes care of the issue, but not this year, the snow has stayed on the roofs and also caused ice dams which cause leaks. Many homes around here are 2 story and have steep roofs which normally shead their snow, or it melted off due to poor insulation. With the big push now for energy conservation and newer insulating materials for older houses, these buildings with energy efficiency upgrades, and this years weather, roof loading is a real problem. There are many roofers who have rehired their seasonal help just to shovel roofs, but they have to address many special safety issues this time of year, plus roofing contractors have to pay some of the highest Workmans Comp. and liability rates going. Meaning hiring them to shovel your roof is very expensive. If you are young and not working you have no excuse not to clear your roof, however if you are older,can't climb, and on a fixed income what do you do? As far a some of these farm buildings that have colapsed,they are huge, often 400' long and 80' wide. How long do you think it would take a farmer and a couple of helpers to shovel that roof plus the others they have, plus do their daily chores. Putting heating coils on a roof that size would be financially impractical. We've lost most of our farmers now, due to low prices. This winter will claim some more. The point is it's not as simple as climbing up and spending an hour shoveling.

Hay ct, you and I have both been watching the weather for 63 years. I was born May of 47

I live in what we call snow country and am 67 years old. NO body would ever think about going up on a roof to remove snow, that would be thought that if you did try that you would be thought of as crazy. Only once in a great while did a building ever cave in from snow and if it did it was already abanded and falling in. It was only after I came on this board did I ever hear of anybody going up to clean snow off of roofs. It just means that if they do cave in they just were not built correctly.

70 buildings have caved in in MA RI AND Conn Because no one had the smarts to clean the snow off.2 old school houses caved in here during the 1998 ice storm.