January 2001

Snow Freakin'

The Mid-Atlantic is a great place to live. Neither north nor south, it quite possibly enjoys the best of all possible worlds. It is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Basically it has seasons, and everyone should know this.

So why then, do many of the residents of the Mid-Atlantic scare at the sound of the word "snow"? The amount, the chances of it even occurring… these things don't matter. The mere mention of the word by a local forecaster sends the region into a tailspin.

Stores are crowded with people buying every last item in the store. Milk, eggs, butter, whatever. This fear motivates people to buy things that they would never need, and probably in an illogically large quantity. People buy more toilet paper when they hear a forecast of snow than they would buy for a normal week.

Here's the thing. Snow is not scary. It is not hard, it is not big, it is NOT SCARY. Snow is fun. It reminds us to be kids again.

I will tell you what would be scary. Snow all falling at once. That's it. No hours of flakes, no potential accumulations, no inaccuracy. The snow would fall in one fell swoop, a huge sheet of snow falling from 20,000 feet to the ground.

When the forecasters call for 8 inches of snow, you could track it on radar. When they tell you it will start (and end) around 11 PM, be sure to stay off the streets because the snow's a coming and it's gonna hurt.

To wit: I was recently in Nou Yawk city for a holiday bash. Snow was forecast for the entire eastern seaboard. 12 inches or more. People in the Mid-Atlantic were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Stores were robbed of their toilet paper, people with snow shovels bought new ones, and everyone generally took leave of their senses.

In the big city the snow fell, the plows plowed, and everyone enjoyed themselves a little bit more. Now why is that?