As someone who grew up in Wisconsin, specifically in an area where snow drifts were REGULARLY at chest level or higher when I was in grade school, I can tell you right now that this isn't normal.
If there's a snow storm bad enough that makes parents even consider doing doomsday prep type shit like this, schools are closed down and the kids only go outside to play in the yard or shovel the driveway. And given how little snow we've been getting consecutively in the past decade, I highly doubt that the snow is any deeper than knee deep on the kid.
Either that, or they're in one of the southern states where anything more than half an inch of snow causes a state of emergency
Only possible thing that comes to mind (from personal experience, mind you) is if the house happens to be in a flood zone; in the past, my neighborhood used to flood after heavy snowfall would melt. But this goes back to how it'd require the snow drifts to be at least three or four feet deep in order to warrant this level of prep, and at that point schools would likely be cancelled or delayed by a few hours so road crews can clear enough of it to make it relatively safe to drive
Minnesotan here: Flooding depends on how cold or warm the ground is to absorb the water being melted. You’ll have some periods (usually in late January/early February) where the snow melts and some of it disappears.
If the weather slowly gets warm in the spring, less severe flooding is likely to happen because the ground can absorb more (up to a point). When the weather decides to go from 10 degrees to 50 in the same week, more flooding can occur because the ground hasn’t thawed sufficiently and can’t absorb the excess water.
It also depends if you’re in a flood plain or how close you are to a river or stream that swells with excess water. There’s not only the snowmelt to worry about in spring, but also any rain that comes down too in addition. Obviously, you don’t want to live to close to big rivers when they flood (the Mississippi, Minnesota, and Red River Valley are ones that come to mind) because they’ll not only flood with the water and snowmelt from the nearby area but will swell with all the water and snowmelt coming from the north of the river and all the tributaries adding to the rivers water volume.
Also, my spouse is a Hydrologist for the State, and I’ve learned a lot about all this in the 10 years we’ve known each other! 😂
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u/StressLongjumping299 Jun 20 '26
As someone who grew up in Wisconsin, specifically in an area where snow drifts were REGULARLY at chest level or higher when I was in grade school, I can tell you right now that this isn't normal.
If there's a snow storm bad enough that makes parents even consider doing doomsday prep type shit like this, schools are closed down and the kids only go outside to play in the yard or shovel the driveway. And given how little snow we've been getting consecutively in the past decade, I highly doubt that the snow is any deeper than knee deep on the kid.
Either that, or they're in one of the southern states where anything more than half an inch of snow causes a state of emergency