When I started this blog, it was partly on the inspiration of reading my sister’s blogs, but I was also planning on using it as my outlet to comment upon the current events that get me irritated or put a smile on my face. However, it seems that more often than not, it became a way to reflect on the past and to talk about things remembered. This time however, I can talk about that bit of fun from last weekend – the Great Blizzard of 2016 aka Jonas, or something or other.
I look forward to times like that during the winter like
I look forward to vacation during the summer. Snowstorms make the winter more
interesting and breaks up the mundane of the daily grind. There’s something
quiet and calming about snowfall that seems to turn down the noise of the rest
of the outside world. Even shoveling isn’t that big of a deal – when it can be
done at one’s own pace without having to worry about doing anything else that
day. It is quite annoying to have to shovel out with the purpose of going to
work instead of the purpose of making a nice sliding hill in the driveway.
This season has been quite unusual as we had the
record-breaking warmth for Christmas. Now we are in the icy grip of winter, or
at least we were before the blizzard. As fun as the big snows are when they
come, it seems a habit of the climate here in Pennsy that as soon as it’s over,
the warmer weather flows right in and melts all the fun away. Within the first
couple of days after it was all over, we must have lost at least seven or eight
inches to melting. Easy come, easy go I guess. There was that one year, though,
a few years back where we had a few storms almost back to back, so that made
things really interesting for a couple of weeks.
While it’s nice and all to have that break from the
grind, it often makes me wonder how other people who live in areas where
snowfall like this isn’t out of the ordinary look at us in the Tri-state area.
Two to three feet of snow in one fell swoop is one thing, but it seems that our
region gets paralyzed if there is anything more than a couple of inches.
Sometimes it borders on the ridiculous. However, one of the things that really
irks me is that constant nagging by state and local officials and the news
stations about staying inside and off the roadways if it is not absolutely
necessary to be traveling. To me, if it’s that damn important, then they need
to be shutting things down and making sure a state of emergency is just that –
only emergency personnel are allowed out on the roads. For God’s sake, year of
year of these storms and none of them have realized that certain businesses are
simply not going to close, and as such force their employees out into the mess
unless they are forced to close. If everyone is so concerned about safety and
such (even as those very businesses claim to be), then just shut them down,
otherwise it’s just so much asinine lip service. There is nothing, and I mean
absolutely nothing, that is so important that it can’t wait a day or two to go
pick up at the store – especially when we have far enough advance notice of
these storms nowadays.
One of things I did find amusing however, in the
headshaking way, are those questions inevitable asked by reporters when the
unusual weather is a topic of newsworthy discussion. It usually goes along the
lines of “what do you think about this (insert unusual weather event).” I’m not
sure the reason for it, but it seems they want some type of “hype” reaction
from the people of whom the question is asked. Once in a while, they’ll get that
person like me who has no problem with the weather as it is unfolding, yet the
reporter acts incredulous that the interviewee is not affronted by the
non-conformity.
Wild weather has always been fun for me. Sometimes I
think I missed my calling as a meteorologist. Like those winter blizzards,
those summer thunderstorms bring one of those tiny thrills every time they roll
around. I can recall a few that were preceded by some really neat cloud
formations. A really cool sight to see are those rolling thundercells out West.
It’s pretty cool to be standing out one some plain somewhere watching a huge
thunderstorm some 20 miles away glide by in all its anvil shaped glory. So it
was nice for Jonas to grace us with his presence for a day so we could watch
the ebb and flow of the snowfall and continue to be amused by the local news stations
and government officials. Time to look forward to the next one, hopefully
sooner rather than later – and again on my weekend off.
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