The Disappointing Snowfall

I can still see the houses, how is my father supposed to plow this?

When did the weather people decide to start naming winter storms?  I understand the concept of naming hurricanes and such, massive storm fronts that can do enough damage to almost wipe a city off of the map are something that you kind of want to keep track of and have a name to curse when it screws up your vacation plans/life.   I guess you could say something like “the great storm of 2004” but that kind of makes you sound like someone who is still impressed that drinking has been re-legalized.

Naming a winter storm sort of feels like we need to keep track of every time that it rains outside, and I am sure that there are people out there that get paid to do so—even though that job sounds mind numbingly boring, and if it is really that important that we start naming things we will all forget about I should probably stop yelling at Veronica about naming the mice in our apartment as I set traps.  I think that the problem is that someone figured out that if you make an event about everything people will be interested in it, and I wish that there was some kind of example or story about someone calling out in alarm too much about… I don’t know… maybe a predatory animal or something.

Local paper from the day after, still claiming that we got "a ton of snow"

Now I heard that there were areas that managed to get a rather good amount of snow fall, and if the electronic signs on the thruway are to be believed the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut managed to get themselves closed for business over the whole ordeal, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was told to expect upwards of two feet of snow and managed to get cheated into only 3 inches.  That would be like being told that my father was cooking steak for dinner and then being taken out to McDonalds for the dollar menu.  Maybe it is because I had some really cool plans set up for last Friday and cancelled them for fear of the snow becoming sentient and judging us all harshly that I am kind of angry about nothing happening.  That or someone needs to learn to manage my expectations for me.

I would like to blame the last couple of years and all of the fervor that went into expecting the world to end several times throughout the last while having a kind of lasting effect on the energy that we are putting into everything but on the other hand, no. Stop it.

Comments 5

  • I didn’t even realize the storm had been christened “Nemo” until days later…and only after reading many posts on Facebook about “Finding Nemo”. Since we got a foot of snow it was much more exciting for us, and judging by the amount of traffic heading towards Whiteface on Saturday, lots of others found the snow exciting as well. Bring on the weather drama!! It keeps life interesting, especially when the drama is like a good TV show that is soon over.

  • Sensationalism sells.

  • The naming scheme was started and is implemented by the weather channel. Purportedly, it is to avoid the media just naming things like “snow-maggedon” and what have you. The National Weather Service doesn’t have anything to do with the names and is gamely ignoring the whole thing. So, there you go.

  • I hope the mouse named David continues to ravish all the peanut butter you set forth in said traps. He has ninja like skills that make others truly jealous.


  • It was named Larry and died like five seconds after naming it.