Thundersnow
The winter storm advisory in effect for Chicago right now states in part:
SNOW IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP AROUND MIDNIGHT TONIGHT AND CONTINUE INTO FRIDAY MORNING AND LAST UNTIL ABOUT NOON ON FRIDAY. THE SNOW MAY BE HEAVY AT TIMES WITH SNOWFALL RATES OF 1 TO 2 INCHES PER HOUR AT THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM. WITH THESE HIGH RATES OF SNOWFALL…SOME THUNDERSNOW IS POSSIBLE AS WELL. (emphasis mine, but the caps belong to the National Weather Service)
I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced this thundersnow phenomenon, or even heard of it, despite having lived in cold climes the better part of the last ten years. (I even just asked Google if it was a typo). I grew up in Dallas, where we used to get sent home from high school in the middle of the day if the s-word was even in the forecast, and where the entire city shut down if so much as a half-inch of snow fell. (As I write this, Dallas is getting a freak snowstorm. I trust that all the girls at my alma mater got sent home midday at the latest).
I used to think I liked cold weather, and I harbored romantic notions of attending a small liberal arts college in New England, where I would attend class in red-brick buildings wrapped in bright fall foliage, and then, much later in the season, I would curl up with a mug of hot chocolate, read Aristotle, and watch the snow fall.
I did attend that small New England liberal arts college and I did read lots of Aristotle. I also froze my ass off beginning around the second week in September. Don’t scoff: the average high in September in Dallas is 89F (that’s 32C, Tim).When proud New Englanders tell you they’ve got four seasons, they neglect to mention that three of them are cold. The fact that Autumn could bring temperatures below 50F (10C) wasn’t even in my frame of reference. When I called home my freshman year to tell my parents about the first real snow fall–early November–my mom thought I was playing a joke on her.
The good thing about surviving winters in New England or the Midwest is that these places are, of course, equipped to handle it. My college had all the sidewalks neatly shoveled no later than 8am, and both Indianapolis and Chicago have their salt trucks out long before I ever need to be anywhere. And, having now survived a decade of these winters, I at least have winter coats and woolly accoutrements.
That doesn’t mean I’ve learned to like winter, though. In fact, I probably like it less the more I get used to it. In Dallas, snow was such a novelty! Two inches, and all the kids are outside trying to scrape enough together for snowmen and snow fights. Parents, too. People stay home from work and school and indulge in the wintery comforts you see in Lands’ End catalogues–we’d light fires, make hot chocolate, snuggle up with old movies or a good book. It’s no wonder I thought New England would be day upon day of crackling fireplaces, since I had never really thought about what it would be like to have to deal with snow every day for months at a time. Scraping windshields, schlepping through muddied slush, getting salt all over your shoes. Digging your car out of the snowdrifts made by the snow plough. Months of skies that feel like they’ll never be sunny again.
So, Dallasites: enjoy your freak thundersnow! When I wake up tomorrow and it’s white outside, I’ll pretend I’m back in Texas.
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current book: Yeah. I picked up the latest Economist and left Moby-Dick at home today. I’ll pick it up again. I will.
current music: Soon it will be the sound of snow falling…
current socks: White with bears and moose ice-skating.
