A lack of snow this winter may have disrupted plans for Penn State skiers and snowboarders -- but the squirrels aren't complaining.

"Squirrels depend on finding food they've hidden throughout the year," said Chris Goguen, senior lecturer in wildlife sciences.

But this year, unusually low snowfall has kept acorns, their staple food, readily available throughout most of the winter, he said.

Winters with heavy snowfall make the task of finding food difficult for the squirrels, Goguen said.

AccuWeather senior forecaster John Gresiak said Pennsylvania received fewer than 2 inches of total snow for the entire month of January, the lowest January snowfall of the past six years.

As of Monday, State College has received 22.2 inches of snow this winter, according to AccuWeather.

Shanna Cohen (senior-political science) said the warm weather this year has been a welcome change.

"It's much better than walking to class in a foot of snow, freezing," she said.

In an area that usually sees quite a bit of snow in its winter months, this year's low total is having an impact.

For example, snowfalls require a diversion of workforce personnel from other endeavors, both in the borough and on Penn State's campus.

"We've been doing a lot more tree trimming," said Mark Whitfield, director of public works for the State College Borough.

Whitfield said the lack of snow in January freed public works to do what the earlier snow prevented them from doing.

Leaf cleaning is usually done in the fall, but a lot of that task has been done in January because most snowfall this winter occurred earlier in the season, Whitfield said.

An average winter has about 17 snowfalls of less than three inches each --making about 48 inches of snow total. The borough spends an average of $10,760 per snowfall, Whitfield said.

This season, there have been 12 snowfalls, and the borough has spent about $98,000, an average of about $9,000 each.

Because the money for snow cleanup and removal is allocated based on average snowfall, less snow means money is put back into the department's budget, Whitfield said.

The money used for plowing snow and salting is the same money that would otherwise be used for street cleaning, he added.

A large portion of the money used for snow cleanup comes from the liquid fuel tax, and the rest comes from general taxes, Whitfield said.

Paul Ruskin, Office of Physical Plant (OPP) spokesman, said the lack of snow is a good thing.

"Everyone involved in snow removal has a regular duty to fulfill," he said. "Snow is made a priority when it snows."

Work on other OPP duties and projects is temporarily slowed down after a snowfall, he said.

Ruskin said snow removal costs Penn State between $400,000 and $700,000 a year. So far this year, Penn State has spent $448,000 while removing 22.5 inches of snow.

Tom Matalavage, hill operator at Tussey Mountain, said the season has been slow at the local ski area.

"We went through five weeks of spring here," he said.

Amber Breniman, Tussey Mountain's sales director, said snow last weekend improved business, but the number of customers was still far short of a typical winter weekend.

Because Tussey Mountain irrigates with air and water, warmer winters make it difficult to create artificial snow.

The water sprayed into the air by the machine does not freeze into good skiing snow, he said.

Tarisa Gibbs (senior-economics) said she's been thrilled with the low amount of snowfall this winter.

"If it's not enough to cancel classes, I don't want to see it," she said.