A Storm's A-comin'!

 

               For days the weather people have been predicting a storm for our area.  They are quite dramatic about it all, starting with about a week out hinting that there could be some activity in about a week.  As the days go by they tantalize viewers with all the possibilities shown by the various computer models they use.  About three days out they start warning of “significant” snow fall and “plowable” totals, but show the highest amounts in an area that typically doesn’t see that much accumulation. As we get closer to the actual formation of the storm they start moving the highest totals away from their first favored area until at last, hours before the storm is to hit they inform us that the typically hardest hit areas are once again to expect the highest amounts of precipitation. Then, just to keep the drama going, they raise the amounts every couple of hours.  They are excited!  The news teams start going out to do reports on how well the road crews are prepared to keep the roads safe and clear while urging people to stay home once the flakes start to fall.  Mayors hold news conferences to inform the fair citizens of their town or city of the upcoming storm, preparations, emergency plans, and to urge everyone to stay off the roads.  With the explosion of social media platforms even mayors of small towns can send out a video or live stream to the townsfolk to keep them up to date. 

It seems a crazy thing when I think back to when I was a kid (at the risk of sounding like an old lady) and we looked out the window to see what was happening, and listened to our local radio station to find out if school was closed. That was it, all the warning we had.  I don’t recall anyone running out to the store before a storm to “stock up” on anything since we usually had whatever we needed already on hand.  There was food in the house, and we had snow shovels and rock salt to melt any icy areas already.  A snow storm was an event, but not as dramatically so as it is now.  We went outside to play in the snow; snowman and fort building, sledding, snow ball fights, snow angels, tramping paths through deep snow and chasing each other through them were all the fun we needed.  We even used to get cereal bowls, fill them with snow and go back in the house to top it with sugar and food dye to make snow ice cream.  It was fun!  That is how I remember snow storms, just fun with no big build up or stress.  It was just something that happened in the winter.  When the storm was over we measured it to see how much there was, put on boots, coats, hats and gloves and got on with life.

Our storm started this afternoon, ahead of schedule, and it looks to be settling in for a relatively long time, a couple of days’ worth of snow according to the reports.  Medical offices have cancelled all appointments, town halls and libraries are closed, schools are closed and are planning for remote learning only for the day after snowmageden.  Before the pandemic and schools even having remote learning, the day after would have been a delayed opening to give road crews, buildings and grounds for the schools, teachers and support personnel time to get their cars cleared to go to work. I guess having the remote option eases some of the stress of trying to dig out of deep snow early in the day, so that’s a plus. We will very likely end up watching tv coverage of the storm where they will interview plow drivers, people out on the road and at stores “stocking up to hunker down”, and as things progress they will live stream driving around in their news vans to demonstrate in real time how dangerous driving is in these conditions.  There will be the obligatory snow pictures on social media as we remind ourselves and each other that although big storms are inconvenient and can be dangerous, there is still beauty to the falling snow.