Snow swap saves US winter carnival

Buffalo has been battling with record snow fall

What do you do when your winter festival calls for snow and there is none to be found?

Well, you ask your neighbours if they can spare some!

That is exactly what the US city of Rochester, New York, did for its annual Cold Rush winter carnival, due to start on Friday.

They trucked in snow from a place that had plenty - neighbouring Buffalo, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) away.

We were terrified that it might melt on the way

Ed Hall, Rochester Visitors Association

"We were determined to have a successful festival," said Ed Hall of Rochester's Visitors Association, in a BBC interview.

Buffalo has seen heavy snowfall since Christmas - 207 centimetres (81.5 inches) - and has almost run out of places to dump it.

Rochester, on the other hand, was embarrassingly bare, despite a weekend full of events planned to promote winter tourism, including skiing on a man-made slope in the centre of the city.

Now the 20 trucks sent to Buffalo to collect the precious white stuff have saved the festival.

"We were terrified that it might melt on the way," said Mr Hall.

Some cannot get enough of it, others could do with less

Luckily, with temperatures now just below freezing, the snow looks set to guarantee a successful opening of the festival.

"We dumped it on one of the down town streets and sprayed it with water to give it a nice clean surface," said Mr Hall.

"Now we are hoping for the best."

While Rochester asked only to "borrow" the snow, Buffalo clearly is not expecting any of it back.

"If anybody else wants any, we will send it anywhere they want," says Buffalo city official Paul Sullivan who has been battling to keep the streets clear ever since the heavy snowfall began.