Why Do Southerners Go Crazy Over Snow?
Last night (January 18) in Greensboro, Richmond, Charlotte, Raleigh, and yesterday afternoon in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, it snowed. That’s kind of a big deal for us.
Chicagoians, New Yorkers, Canadians, and any and all others who see snow once a week from September to March can go ahead and laugh.
Why does the sight (and to be honest, the thought) of snow make us go crazy and strip grocery shelves of bread and milk? Here are my thoughts as to why:
–First, 90% of our snow forecasts never happen. There should be a YouTube file of all the times our local weather folks go out in their weather gardens and start getting us hyped up over one snowflake or the temperature that might drop below freezing at just the right time. I also give points to this being our first snow forecast of the year and it actually happening. Especially since I did my Target run at 4:30 p.m. in a torrential rain downpour. By 7:30 this was a snow pour, with thunder and lightning. Yeah, how about that weather.
–Because 90% of our snowcasts never happen, We can count the times we’ve seen snow on our hands. While this is more true for Gen X and Millennial southerners, my boomer parents and war generation grandparents still get just as excited. Maybe it’s because my parents remember helping me make a snowman in 1988 that was twice my height (I was 3). Maybe it’s because they remember how in 1993 we had a mixture of snow and ice just like we did last night. The power went out. Meanwhile, 2000 shut down the whole city for 8 days. We went to school for extra hours for the rest of the year after that. 2001 gave us the though of a white Christmas. 2010 actually brought us one.
–And here we are now at 2013. I’ll be putting on my snowboots to get to work soon, but for now, I’m going to enjoy the thought that it’s just enough to be pretty and not enough to be a major hassle. Even the train (and the buses) are running. Well, the Piedmont is. Check it out in the station below. Queue the thoughts of Thomas the Tank Engine in the snow. The power will come on soon. The sun is shining. I will step away from the humor again for a moment and wish for safe travels for those of you who are traveling. Call the power company until they get the power back on. If they can stop cutting down our trees because we protest, they can do their basic job of restoring power too. Oh and I think the sun will melt the snow off my car. I’m thankful I’m walking distance.
Amtrak’s Piedmont arrives for it’s morning run on January 19, 2013. (Photo Credit Kristen Jeffers)
Anyway, happy snow day fellow Southerners! Be careful no matter what you have to do, take lots of pictures, and add this one to the finger count. Also, here’s the link to the latest reports from the News & Record, with a nice picture right outside my office.