It's Been Snowing A Lot In Other Places, Too. Plus Cool Train/Snow Vid

The Avoriaz Resort in the French Alps released
this photo after they were hit this week
with a huge snowstorm. Yes, it looks
like there's enough snow there to ski.  

I've been harping on the incessant snow and cold in New England, but of course there's always other parts of the world that manage to get into the snow act, too.

France, Sweden and parts of Canada have also been nailed. (You'll have to check out the video of the train at the bottom of this post.)

Jesse Farrell over at AccuWeather noted incredible snowfalls in the Pyrenees and French Alps over in Europe.

Farrell cited the Piau Engaly Ski Resort in the Pyrenees, which said it got 102 inches of snow -- eight and a half feet! - in one day and 157 over three days.

That one-day total would break the world record of 78 inches of snow in 24 hours. However, Farrell notes that ski resort measurements are usually not accepted into official weather records because personnel at the resorts haven't been trained to take measurements correctly.

The French Alps also reported some very heavy snows.

In Sweden, the city of Lulea, in the northern part of that country, had its snowiest day on record Tuesday, with 44.5 inches of new snow. That fell atop 30 inches already on the ground.

The Washington Post said people in that part of the world are accustomed to heavy winter weather, and the snow cleanup, while a lot of work, was done in a pretty short period of time.

I've mentioned several times that Maine has gotten blasted by this snowy pattern, which has dumped up to 76 inches of snow in nine days in the eastern part of the state.

Snowbanks keep growing in snowbound
Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
Photo by Kate Letterick/CBC 

Or course, Canada's Maritime Provinces, particularly New Brunswick, have shared in this incredible snow blitz.

The mayor of St. John, New Brunswick declared a state of emergency earlier this week because that city has been smothered in snow, says the Globe and Mail of Canada.

There was 49 inches of snow on the ground in St. John by the time the third storm in a week ended on Tuesday. There's usually something like six or seven inches of snow on the ground in St. John this time of year, the Globe and Mail says.

Moncton, New Brunswick has already gotten about 80 inches of snow this winter, roughly the amount they get an entire winter.  Snow can fall as late as April, and in some years, May in Moncton, so they have a long way to go.

As I noted, a trainspotter in Salisbury,  New Brunswick got an awesome video up on YouTube that shows a Canadian National Railway locomotive blustering its way through the deep snow this week somewhere in New Brunswick.

Check it out. The first minute or so of the video is the best: