Snow years we remember...

Fifteenth Century French poet François Villon put it best when he said “Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?” (which was translated by Dante as “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”). This ancient Gallic counterpart of Bob Dylan probably remembered some awesome snow years that were just from the record books, put I assume, ignored in the process the less than stellar ones, the medium ones, those that were not created to be remembered.

A winter drought might have made no impression on him, as in those days, a total eclipse of winter was probably good news for everyone. In truth, and looking back, I only seem to remember one awesome snow years (69-70 in the Alps) and another really bad one (63-64 in that same mountain range, during the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics), but the in-between years, no matter how exceptional, are tough, if not totally impossible to remember.

So the morale of that story is that the exceptional in either direction makes a lasting impression and none of the events in-between are retained. Now, when I ask myself: “is this snow season really bad?” I don't seem capable to come up with a good answer. Of course, there is no well-substantiated documentation to go to, so for the moment, I'm just wondering in the dark...