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Let it snow (maybe)


In my next life, I want to be a weather forecaster. I am sure there are a number of science coursed involved if you want to be a meteorologist, but once you get through school, it seems as if you can make mistakes on a regular basis and still get to keep your job.

During Thursday night's news, the weather guy said we could expect 2 to 4 inches of snow beginning around 5 p.m. on Friday; in fact, at choir earlier that evening, someone told me she had heard between 2 and 10 inches (talk about precise!). Not wanting a repeat of what happened the previous Friday, when it took me well over an hour and a half to drive the 10 miles home because of much more snow than predicted, I decided to leave before 4:30 on Friday, hoping to beat the impending snow. The snow never came. But it was raining on the way home, so it took me a leisurely 50 minutes to get home instead; Pittsburgher drivers and precipitation do not mix well. When I was out shopping today, I was actually excited to see a rain-snow mix around 12:30 p.m. Finally, I thought, the snow is coming. But, alas, within an hour, that had stooped, and accumulation was rather non-existent, as is evidenced by this picture. To be fair, a few hours later, we did get a bit more snow, so we might have actually netted an inch, not the three inches that the were called for in the revised forecast for today.

I am not sure if it is just in Pittsburgh, where people get worked up about snow and some stations feel the need to have extra long and/or early newscasts focusing on a "major snowstorm." Despite the global warming that may or not be as rampant as some suggest, if you live in western PA, you need to accept that it is going to snow in the winter (you know, that season that generally begins at the beginning of December and lasts until about halfway through April).
A few weeks ago the news came on at 4:30 a.m. (I was up thanks to insomnia). The newsperson asked a PennDot spokesperson, who was standing outside in the clear air, on the bare ground, how PennDot was dealing with the snow. The guy said something like, "Well, there is no snow yet, and the ground is too cold to pretreat, so we are just waiting for the snow to come." Then, the news went to the traffic person. Are you sitting down for this shocker: there was no traffic at 4:35 a.m. Thank goodness the news station is right on top of situations like these.

Recently in the P-G, someone complained that the news did not spend a lot of time on the 5-day forecast. Lady, be glad you miss it sometimes. I have fallen victim to the 5-day forecast, and have ended up under- or over-dressing because I did not bother to check the news again a day ahead. For the fun of it, 13 days out, I tracked the forecasted temps for March 1. On Sunday, February 17, the temperature forecasted for March 1 was 56 degrees. Most days between then and February 29, the temperature forecasted went down. On February 29, the temperature forecasted for March 1 was 30 degrees, and I think it ended up around the freezing mark. Hey, football season is over; I have to get my amusement from somewhere.

Mostly, I just try to roll with whatever the weather ends up being. If I don't have plans, and the weather seems bad (wait, I think I should say "seem to be bad"; ah, Pittsburghese), then I try to stay home. But if I need to get to work or if I have something to do, I just deal with it. I don't drive like an idiot, like some SUV drivers do. But I also don't drive 15 mph on the highway once it starts flurrying.

Regardless, I really hope this seemingly never-ending winter ends soon. I have tried to appreciate the beauty of the snow as much as I can; in fact, Jordan and I really made the most out of being in the car for so long last Friday, just talking and looking at the snow. I have occasionally played outside with Jordan in the frosty air (we actually went sled-riding on the one inch of snow this afternoon for about 10 minutes before the temps dropped to the mid 20s). But I am also feeling stir-crazy. Yet hopeful that we will get a spring that lasts more than a few weeks and a summer that does not last five months. Spring, please come soon...

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