> This ought to make it obvious that I am imagining snow season as being like our rainy season, in the sense that for several months of the year you can almost guarantee that in any given 24-hour period it will rain at least once. Maybe heavily, maybe lightly, and for various durations, but basically you assume there will be rain. Is snowfall like this in New England? Or is it more like "one big snowfall, then it sits around for weeks until the next big snowfall"?

It's more like "one big snowfall, then a few smaller ones every once in a while until the next big snowfall." You usually don't have to worry about the smaller storms much as long as you aren't traveling on unplowed side streets. The big ones are what you really have to avoid. Going up to New Hampshire (from Massachusetts) this weekend was awful in the storm we had.

MANGO