Between yesterday and last night we received over a foot of snow. The trash cans in the picture already had snow on them, so the height of the piles is more than a foot.
Fortunately, this snow was fine-grained and not difficult to shovel. After I cleared the necessary paths, I got out the snow blower for its first use of the winter. It took about two hours, but I was able to clear the whole driveway. One problem I had was that there were soft spots where the driving wheels would sink in and spin. In such places, I had to wrestle the snow blower into a place where the wheels could find purchase before clearing more snow. It was quite a workout, but worthwhile.
The roof of our house is covered with corrugated metal. We decided not to put snow stops on the roof because our house was built in 1950 and the roof support structure was done in the style of the times. There is probably nothing to worry about, but we wanted to be able to clear snow easily if there is a large buildup. It is not uncommon for roofs to collapse here.
One cool thing that happens is that a thick snowpack will break loose and slide off the roof as a slab. I have seen it happen a few times (often after throwing snowballs to trigger it). When the slab slides off the edge of the roof it follows an almost-straight line at the roof pitch angle until it hits the ground. When the front edge hits the ground, the slab breaks and the pieces fall almost vertically downward.
The first time I saw it, I was amazed. I would have expected the snow to break at the roof edge and follow a parabolic path, but I guess the snow has enough cohesion for the slab to remain intact until it hits the ground.
When a thin snow layer slides off, the path it follows is clearly parabolic, as expected.
Your verbiage is as excellent as the observations. It makes great reading, in my humble opinion!