October Snow brings more tricks than treats!

"It was only going to be a dusting!" 

I happened to just catch a snippet of the news on Friday afternoon and was shocked to see a snow storm headed our way with 6 - 12 inches forecasted. Friday night was spent putting on the snow blade in the dark, just in case, and it was a good thing as we woke up on Saturday, October 29th to heavy snow falling -

Note that most of the trees still have leaves. 

Power went out around noon and as we meandered around the house to past the time, we suddenly heard an abrupt knocking at the window and were shocked to see some wild turkeys pecking and eating some berries that had fallen from the Green Hawthorne tree.

 As startled as we were, they headed off towards the woods, past the truck,   . . .

 . . . leaving these huge tracks behind. Stepping outside to take these photos, you could hear branches crashing through out the woods. 

The next day, we had bright sunshine, clear blue skies and brilliant white snow  . .  .

 . .  but we could then see all the damage . . .

We lost about 10 branches total, many falling from the tops of the trees and bringing other branches down as they fell. One massive branch from the old maple covered the driveway. 

We were fortunate though, as many folks were out of power for days or lost entire trees. 

Below is a snowfall total from Accuweather for the Northeast breaking records everywhere. No one in this area we talked to can even recall having snow in October. 

Apparently, power outages have increased in our area by 60% in the last few years. 

Is it system issues or more intense storms?