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The theory sort of makes sense when you consider how long it takes to melt snow in heavy snowfall winters.

For example, there is an area in my neighborhood where the snowplows push a lot of the snow, it's an empty lot on the corner of a residential intersection that is surrounded by tall trees so that spot is always in the shade. It is always where the last of the snow melts in the spring.

Well usually the snow is completely gone from that spot by mid-April but this year, but due to some heavier than normal snowfall this winter there was still snow there at the beginning of May! And this was after we had a two-week period where daytime temps were mostly in 60s and 70s.

Now I checked the weather conditions for my area and we received 73 inches of snow against an average of 52 inches. So the snowfall was only about 30% higher than normal.

SO what if we received double the normal amount of snow? Likely we would have had snow hanging around in that spot until the middle of June. This is not unprecedented in my lifetime. During the winter of 1977-78, this area received about 115 inches of snow and there were indeed snow piles around these parts into June that year.

So let's say we get a very heavy amount of snow across the upper third of the U.S. The snowpack will keep temperatures cooler in the spring and with that much snow combined with cooler than normal spring and summer temperatures, it's quite possible we would hang on to much of that snowpack through the summer.

Then when the snows start up again that winter, it will be on top of snow from the year before and the tipping point will be reached. By spring, the snowpack will be so entrenched that it will never get warm enough in summer to melt it all and suddenly a good part of the United States is now officially in an ice age.

During the winter of 1977-78, this area received about 115 inches of snow and there were indeed snow piles around these parts into June that year.

The last place to melt that year at my house was a snow drift about 2 times the distance from the house as the height of the house to the southwest. Basically a big drift created by the house in the Blizzard of 78. When I was hiking in the White Mountains that year, there were some big drifts left in June. I think it would take a much more extreme winter for the snow to last through the July and August sun and thunderstorms, but it could happen, or I should say, will happen, with the right conditions.