Dire preductions - our weather station thrives on them. But, then again, they must keep us tuned in to their station, right?
This is the snowiest winter, since I have been in North Carolina. (Or, as my northern friends who have moved to Brevard remark about our NC snow - "What snow?")
This afternoon, I took a little nap in front of a cozy, warming log-burning fireplace. Suddenly, I awoke to see the view outside my glassed-in sliding doors. Snow coming down at a rate that I had not seen since I moved to this blessed corner of the world.
The snowflakes were not just drifting down aimlessly, or fluttering away in the beeze. They were really coming down - by my local standards. I thought, "Well, here it is. A true snowfall blanketing the ground around my house." Trees and bushes were overladen with white blankets, like comforters. This was it! Bullel-dodging was a thing of the past.
Then suddenly, it was over - and the coverlet of white was melting away. Just in the period of an hour or so, the trees, bushes, grass, and roadside had lost their winter-wear and were lush and green once more.
All in all, the weather has been topsy-turvy thie last couple years acorss the United States. We have grown up to expect certain patterns to occur and, strangely, the patterns have changed!
I remember when I lived in South Carolina during World War II, that it was a rare occasion when it would snow. A few lonely snowflakes would fall. So rare, that our neighbors would run outside to see the phenomena of white crystals which would disappear upon hitting the warm soil of the ground..This year they. too, have been pelted with snowfall in parts of South Carolina.
But, nothing like the snow and ice that has descended upon Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham in 2004. We, in the southwestern portion of the Appalachian mountain area, have dodged the bullet, once more. The predicted deep snows have gone around us - either to the West or to the East. Thank goodness!
Once you have driven your way through a Northern blizzard or "white out", you have a deep understanding of SNOW. I can remember years of driving through the northern states during swirling, stinging blizzards of unending snowfalls. Worst of all, to me, were the white=outs. You would be driving along the expressway, when all of a sudden you would be confronted with a solid white wall ahead of you - with a blizzard so dense that you could not see any thing ahead except white. .
I can also remember Northern winters when the snowplows had pushed the white stuff to the sides of the roads, building it up in banks so high that you could not see above them, or around a corner. Pieces of red material tied to your antenna did help other drivers, approaching the intersection, to know of your presence.
My last full witer in a Northern state, convinced me to move to more temperate slimates. It snowed, about three feet or so, on Otober 13th and I did not see the grass until the end of March. The first time it appeared, lush and green, was over my septc tank. There were many times when I was a prisoner in my own home, unable to walk outside without the fear of falling.
So, to all of you who complain about our snow-dustings, I say "What snow?"
