While snow can inconvenience some, the frozen precipitation is vital for success in agricultural systems and parts of the economy.
Winter normally brings snow to Schuylkill County, as well as complaints from some residents. However, the economy revolves around snowfall more than they realize, especially businesses in recreation areas, retail stores and farms.
"We are definitely dependent on the cold weather and advertising of snow," Barbara Green, president of The Blue Mountain Ski Area and Resort, Palmerton, said recently.
Ski resorts heavily rely on snowfall to attract skiers each year. All 21 ski resorts in Pennsylvania rely on snow making because the state only gets about 20 inches of snow spread out over each year, according to Green.
Natural snow provides free marketing for ski resorts. In the past, a lack of snow resulted in most marketing dilemmas for The Blue Mountain Ski Area and Resort.
"When there is snow out on everybody's front lawns, they think about skiing. When there is no snow, they don't realize all the resorts in Pennsylvania manufacture their own," Green said. "We have a much better time economically when it snows."
The snow-making process requires freezing temperatures. The machines mix air and water and releases the compressed air into the atmosphere. This process requires a large amount of electricity and water pumps in order to compress the air and release it into the resort. When this compressed air is released, it freezes and becomes snow.
Snow making has become more efficient for the Blue Mountain Ski Area in the last 15 years.
"We have become at least 30 percent more efficient over the years with our investments of new equipment," Green said.
The Blue Mountain Ski Area and Resort normally opens about Dec. 10, but it opened the day after Thanksgiving due to this year's early cold temperatures. The recent snow in Pennsylvania has worked in favor of the resort's success so far.
The resort remains open until the last weekend in March. Green said the resort could stay open well into late April if cold temperatures linger, but as the grass becomes greener, skiing is no longer on consumers' minds.
Snow encourages consumers to purchase warmer clothing and winter sporting gear, so sporting goods stores like Schuylkill Valley Sports can suffer economically without snow.
Tony Barone, assistant manager of Schuylkill Valley Sports, Pottsville, has been with the company for five years and has seen the sales pattern winter brings.
"We do see more sales in winter because of Christmas and holiday shopping as well as the cold weather that snow brings," Barone said.
If farmers don't experience the amount of snowfall required to run a farm during the winter, consumers can see higher food prices. Snow is moisture, which makes it just as important as rain in preventing future droughts.
"If there is no snow, you are going to be dryer than usual," Greg DeVoir of The National Weather Service State College office said. "Not enough snow can lead to drought and drought conditions."
Farmer Barron "Boots" Hetherington, 60, of B&R Farms, Ringtown, said he could face a 10- to 15-percent loss of production next year if the winter season is too cold and dry. Most of Hetherington's income comes from berry season.
According to Dwane Miller, agricultural educator of the Penn State Cooperative Extension, snow provides a temperature insulation blanket for plants surviving over the winter.
"Every inch of snow pack can raise the temperature of soil surface an estimated 2 degrees," Miller said.
It is important for crops like strawberries, which grow multiple times after being planted, to have snow pack over the winter for protection.
"I would much rather a few inches of snow rather than rain," Hetherington said.
According to Miller, snowfall won't cause erosion like rain does because it slowly melts every day, keeping the soil in place and recharging ponds and streams.
Snow can also kill off slugs or other pests and the eggs they lay on crops that inevitably hatch the next season.
The last heatwave on Dec. 21 and 22 of 60 degrees and heavy rain was not an ideal agricultural situation.
"The snow will run off rather than absorbing into the soil and filtration might not be very good," Miller said.
Hetherington and his wife, Robin, take precise care of their farm. B&R Farms has been in their family since 1842 and was the first preserve farm in Schuylkill County, which means regardless of what happens to Boots or Robin, nothing is permitted to be built on their land, including houses or malls.
"You can spend 49 weeks taking care of crops and it can all be gone in a 15-minute period of rain or hail for the whole year," Hetherington said. "If it were easy, everyone would do it."