I have a pop-up bubbler and it generally works well if we are lucky to have good, early snow cover to protect everything and the soil never freezes too deep, despite supposedly having a 48" frosy level.
We had a couple of years with minimal or zero snow cover that did cause problems, so I just installed a diverter at ground level and used the old traditions splash blocks if I felt it was a bad year starting. - No problem because to soil was frozen and the surface water ran off and froze to melt and drain. Also the hot winter sun burns much away even at cold temperatures, so it transpires (evaporates) and the excess then runs away since it cannot seep into the frozen ground.
Our conditions may be different because most winter snows (except very early or late in the season) are light weight and relatively fluffy, but they do drift. - A different story south and east of us usually.
Dick
We had a couple of years with minimal or zero snow cover that did cause problems, so I just installed a diverter at ground level and used the old traditions splash blocks if I felt it was a bad year starting. - No problem because to soil was frozen and the surface water ran off and froze to melt and drain. Also the hot winter sun burns much away even at cold temperatures, so it transpires (evaporates) and the excess then runs away since it cannot seep into the frozen ground.
Our conditions may be different because most winter snows (except very early or late in the season) are light weight and relatively fluffy, but they do drift. - A different story south and east of us usually.
Dick