The Lion Part of This Month

That's right, we had a little snowstorm last night in Minneapolis. This picture was taken yesterday, on the 13th. I woke up this morning to 20 mph winds, 14 degrees above freezing, and three inches of snow to clean off my car.

This picture makes the scene look a lot better than it is. I would like to post a photo showing more than this, but the local online media don't really have many.

This is not surprising to me, as many of the local residents have convinced themselves that this kind of precipitation is normal and acceptable for March.

I have not.

There is a lot to like about the Twin Cities, the winter is not one of them. Unfortunately, winter is half of the year here. This kind of snow has happened since November, and in two of the three past years, it has snowed in April. I have no reason to feel optimistic about a pleasant time of it next month this time around.

However, the population here thinks this is normal, and often forgets just how bad it is. This year has had an unusual amount of snow, but it isn't as if there was no snow here in the last few yeras. Nevertheless, many people delude themselves by saying, "It usually isn't this bad here."

What? Are you out of the state for the two weeks every January when the mercury hovers at -10? Did you somehow miss noticing that International Falls, MN is the poster child for winter advisory warnings? That popular culture has appropriated the word "Minnesota" as a predicate nominative denoting cold, bleak, and dreary conditions? Why do you think those "Old Men" are so damn grumpy?

It's cold here, dammit!

I have to admit, though, that those folks who claim it usually is not this bad are merely indulging in subconcsious delusion. The truly certifiable lunatics are the ones who declare one of the following two statements:

1. The winter is not so bad, because it is a dry cold.
   
2. Things are worse in other parts of the country, because they can't handle the snow when it happens.

These statements are so ludicrous as to require seperate dissections.

1. Would you ever say to someone, "It isn't bad anal penetration, because it's dry anal penetration"? I didn't think so. When it is -15 farenheit, and the wind chill dips to -40, I could not care less about humididty. Difference in dew point means little to me, and since I am probably already walking in a few inches of snow, the only moisture that could bother me more would come from being dropped into a lake.

Please do not try to convince me that a dry cold makes a difference once we get below ten. At thirty degrees, I agree. If it were usually thirty in the winter here, I would not be on a rant right now.

2. I do recall what a snowstorm is like in Philly. There are few plows, things do slow down, and cars do slide into eachother more than here, in Minnesota. But, in Philly, people tend to stay home for a day, eat hot soup, snuggle with a book, then wait for the sun to rise the next day and melt all the snow. If you are prepared to deal with snow, then you have to do just that - go outside and deal with it. Personally, I'd rather not.

Moreover, one does not need such advanced preparation when the snow from December melts in December, and does not persist until March. This weekend, I walked outside my apartment and found a newspaper that had been buried in the snow. The date of the edition? Sunday, December 22, 1996. Nice to see that the paperboy could handle the weather that day; it seems no one else really wanted to.

It must have been a wet cold that day.

[March Index] [Home]

Last Updated: 14 March 1997
Rant Back