We had around 7 inches of snow in this blizzard, with high winds. It drifted over the river in one spot (see below) but in the lower hand corner (see above) you can see the narrow flow of the stream that stayed uncovered. I wasn't sure what would happen when snow drifted over the river. I was concerned that it would block the flow and cause it to overflow the edge and pump the water out of the pond but it didn't. I didn't want to turn the pump off because the line would have frozen, so I left it running and everything worked out fine. This whole project is one big experiment and this is one more part of the puzzle of trial and error.