UNITED STATES—If you live in the Midwest or Northeast, you know the winter months can just be brutal as hell. I was always under the guise that the month of January was the worst when it comes to the winter months because the weather can be brutally cold and then you have the worry of wind, snow and ice. Yes, ice is something NOT many people in this country are familiar with.
I mean when I heard recently about that brutal weather that struck the South a few weeks ago it left me stunned. Florida getting several inches of snow, as well as Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas that was indeed a stunning moment to say the least. It does make you wonder about global warming more and more when you’re seeing states that normally don’t see snow and ice storms actually encounter them.
I guess those native North=Easterners and Mid-Westerners when we hear about an inch or two or six inches of snow, it is no big deal. In the South, an inch of snow shuts the state down completely, which I find laughable, but I guess if you’re not familiar with driving in the snow or having to deal with ice, you go into panic mode. It is NOT easy navigating in the snow, where you need those tires with traction. Ice it really doesn’t matter what kind of tires that you have, you have to control that vehicle and decrease your speed and distance for safety.
Now comes the frustrating aspect of Winter: these kids are soft. I mean when I was growing up, you got a few inches of snow, you still had school, you get ½ a foot of snow, you still have school. You have a small ice storm, you still have school. Not today America, not today. My sister was just telling last week, we have a minor ice storm in the region, less than a tenth of an inch, and all the schools in the region were closed. I can understand the ice element because it’s treacherous to drive in no matter how big or small it might be.
However, this week the Midwest is about to be walloped with two big snowstorms, some containing ice. The first one is slated to bring inches more than six to 12 inches of snow in my region. That is a lot of snow, and I expect most schools in the region to be closed as a result. In addition, another storm is expected in the coming weekend, but the amount of snow has not yet been disclosed. There is a problem with that snowstorm because it’s expected to be very heavy snow.
If you’re not familiar with snow, you have heavy snow and then you have light fluffy snow. I prefer the fluffy snow because it is much easier to shovel. That heavy snow is not fun to shovel. Yes, if the winter weather is bad I tend to shovel it and I do it at my home that happens to be a corner house. So that means not only am I shoveling the main entrance to the home, but lots of sidewalk and the more snow you have the more taxing it can be on the body, particularly my arms. I think the worst snowstorm I can recall happened like 25 years ago, where we had more than 15 inches of snow in a single day.
It led to a shutdown of school for at least three to four days. The streets were impassable because they weren’t able to be plowed, the same transpired with many of the freeways and major roads that took the salt trucks and plows days to try to clear for cars to even drive on. It was scary because rarely do you see such, but it can happen and not just in high-elevation points across the United States that become accustomed to such things.
In recent years, February has become that winter month with the craziness. Where it has snowed more times than I can count. The snow eventually melts after a week or two, only for another snowstorm to swoop in and place inches of snow on the ground covering the streets and lawns in the process. Hell, even March has become a problem as of late, where most people suspect once we get pass February all is good because Spring is knocking on the door, but that is not always the case.
You can still get snow, ice and cold weather in the month of March and considering the groundhog saw its shadow and six more weeks of Winter is expected, maybe April is the official end of Winter even after Spring ushers in in late March. As much as I hate the cold, snowy, windy, icy months I would not change it for the world. I couldn’t imagine living in a state where you don’t get the opportunity to enjoy all four seasons, it so makes such a difference.
Written By Jason Jones
