Last of Snow Melts (No Joke) in Canadian City

Summer is almost officially over, and the last snows in Edmonton, Canada, have finally melted just in time for a new season's snows to begin falling.

The last flaky holdout was a patch of snow at Edmonton's west end snow storage facility, where plows dump snow that is scooped from city streets. The last snowflake finally melted late in the afternoon on Sept. 10, reported the Edmonton Journal, citing the city of Edmonton's Twitter account.

Snow dumps typically melt by July, but this year the city removed more than 900,000 cubic meters of snow by January, 100,000 cubic meters more than a usual entire winter season. The pile at the west end snow dump was 10 feet (3 meters) high as late as the beginning of September.

The ground here won't be bare for long. The white stuff should start falling again by November, maybe earlier. But things could be worse, Edmontonians.

Saguenay, Quebec, has at least 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) of snow on the ground for 160 days each year, on average. Edmonton has only 131 such days.

Last summer, a ski resort town in central Sweden had at least 0.4 inches (1 cm) of snow on the ground from late September to early June.

Of course, there are some ski resorts where there is snow on the ground year-round.

According to some data, Paradise Ranger Station on Mount Rainier, in Washington state, gets more snow annually than any other spot on Earth at 56.3 feet (17 meters).