10 inchesThe states with that depth or less are either warmed by the Pacific or the Gulf or the Atlantic. Texas is, and always has been, in the bull's-eye of jet stream incursions, whether from negative NAO or Polar Vortex. Always has been.
Somewhat oddly, one might say, Connecticut and Rhode Island have deeper frost lines than Massachusetts, yet are a tad more southerly and coastal. I'm going to guess that the MA number is an average of Boston area and Western counties. Let's go see. Here's a helpful map, courtesy of the Damn Leftwing Gummint. As can be seen, if you pick a town say Pittsfield, then zoom out, you'll see that frost line does increase as you move from the Boston bay area west.
In engineering, there is the principle of 'margin of safety'; it is everywhere in civil engineering of occupied structures. I recall 'knowing' that elevator cables are required to support more than the designed maximum load, 100% or twice design load is the figure that sticks. Well, here is a 'professional' view
The combined strength of the cables must exceed the weight of the fully loaded car by ten times (safety factor of 10). In most instances, each individual cable will be able to hold more than the car weight, and, oftentimes an elevator may have as many as eight such cables.So, from an engineering point of view, burying water pipes only to the 'expected' frost depth is a margin of safety of zero. Not insulating gas transport pipes is a margin of safety less than zero. Not winterizing turbines, ditto. Northern Europe, even Greenland, manages to run both just fine in winter. About loss of solar when it is snowing, that one rests at the feet of Mother Nature.
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