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Where’s the snow?
It’s nearing Dec. 21, the official beginning of winter, and there’s no snow. The lack of it makes me want to chant a prayer for snow, much like some indigenous tribes used to do back in the day when human beings were much closer to the earth and had respect for its rhythms and operations.
So hold that thought – I’ll be back in a minute.
Glazed with sweat, I just spent five minutes in the parking lot chanting and performing a small leg maneuver in the hopes of coaxing enough moisture to crystallize into snow.
But all I see so far are blue skies. There’s frost, which isn’t the same. No snow. As far as I’m concerned, then, there is no Christmas.
Sorry to get all cutsey about this, but Christmas without snow is like football without booze; like chicken wings without ranch dressing; like Friday night without a date; like a teenager without an excuse; like...like – ah, heck, you get the idea.
I checked around in both Independence and Blue Springs, and city officials there are prepared for snow. They have the salt and pre-treatment. The plows are ready, which I can prove because Independence actually had plows on Crysler Avenue about a week ago when it snowed a centimeter. Whether or not the drivers actually lowered the plow onto the street is another matter.
We need another February 2011. That was marvelous. For a man with Northeast Ohio roots, there was nothing more wonderful and nostalgic than getting outside early and shoveling so much snow that the plastic handle on the shovel busted and fell to the ground in pieces. So much that my dogs couldn’t venture out more than 10 inches to make water – ah, winter!
So until there is snow, I’m going to give you some snow facts you may not be aware of, courtesy of my deep well of innocuous knowledge and some research, mainly through the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The Inuit, better known as Eskimos, have literally dozens of descriptions for snow at their linguistic disposal – just like everyone in Kansas City has dozens of descriptions for the Kansas City Chiefs’ current season.
Skiers created their own terminology, too, in the early 1900s, including “corduroy” and “mashed potatoes.” Those are the unique ones; others, like “fluffy,” “powder,” and “sticky” are worth mentioning. I’ve always been partial to “heaps” and “blissful.”
Where’s the snow?
It’s nearing Dec. 21, the official beginning of winter, and there’s no snow. The lack of it makes me want to chant a prayer for snow, much like some indigenous tribes used to do back in the day when human beings were much closer to the earth and had respect for its rhythms and operations.
So hold that thought – I’ll be back in a minute.
Glazed with sweat, I just spent five minutes in the parking lot chanting and performing a small leg maneuver in the hopes of coaxing enough moisture to crystallize into snow.
But all I see so far are blue skies. There’s frost, which isn’t the same. No snow. As far as I’m concerned, then, there is no Christmas.
Sorry to get all cutsey about this, but Christmas without snow is like football without booze; like chicken wings without ranch dressing; like Friday night without a date; like a teenager without an excuse; like...like – ah, heck, you get the idea.
I checked around in both Independence and Blue Springs, and city officials there are prepared for snow. They have the salt and pre-treatment. The plows are ready, which I can prove because Independence actually had plows on Crysler Avenue about a week ago when it snowed a centimeter. Whether or not the drivers actually lowered the plow onto the street is another matter.
We need another February 2011. That was marvelous. For a man with Northeast Ohio roots, there was nothing more wonderful and nostalgic than getting outside early and shoveling so much snow that the plastic handle on the shovel busted and fell to the ground in pieces. So much that my dogs couldn’t venture out more than 10 inches to make water – ah, winter!
So until there is snow, I’m going to give you some snow facts you may not be aware of, courtesy of my deep well of innocuous knowledge and some research, mainly through the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The Inuit, better known as Eskimos, have literally dozens of descriptions for snow at their linguistic disposal – just like everyone in Kansas City has dozens of descriptions for the Kansas City Chiefs’ current season.
Skiers created their own terminology, too, in the early 1900s, including “corduroy” and “mashed potatoes.” Those are the unique ones; others, like “fluffy,” “powder,” and “sticky” are worth mentioning. I’ve always been partial to “heaps” and “blissful.”
The U.S. city that gets the most snow is not Buffalo, although my sister would beg to differ. It’s actually Mount Washington in New Hampshire (though it’s not technically a city), according to the National Weather Service.
In 2009, it got 260 inches.
The worst storm on record? That would fall to the year 1888, often called the most brutal year for snow. It’s often called the Great White Hurricane, which hit the northeast United States and claimed hundreds of lives. Fifty foot drifts. The Children’s Blizzard pounded Nebraska and the Midwest. They called it that because many of the victims were children, who were walking home from school when it struck.
In the western United States, mountain snow contributes up to 75 percent of all year-round surface water supplies, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Sorry to break it to you, but snow isn’t white; that’s just another delusion you’ve learned to accept since childhood. It’s actually transparent. It appears white because the crystals act as prisms, breaking up the light of the sun into the entire spectrum of color. The human eye is unable to handle that kind of sensory overload.
How snow forms is quite interesting. When water freezes inside clouds, ice crystals, which are formed around tiny bits of dirt that have been carried up into the atmosphere, form. The ice crystals then join together creating flakes. Each snowflake is made up of from 2 to about 200 separate crystals.
Most snowflakes are less than one-half inch across. The largest snowflake recorded was 15 inches in diameter. All snowflakes have six sides and no two snowflakes are alike.
There are five different shapes of snow crystals, according to some scientists: a long needle shape, hollow column that is shaped like a six-sided prism, thin and flat six-sided plates, six-pointed stars and intricate dendrites.
Temperature determines the flake shape. For instance, a temperatures around 32-25 degrees creates thin six-sides plates; at 25-21, long needle shapes are formed; at 21-15 hollow columns are formed; at 14-10 six-point stars are formed; and at 10-3 degrees dendrites are formed.
Now with all this devotion I’ve just laid at the feet of snow (at the expense of readers), the least it could do is snow.
I’m waiting.
