Snowy days

Happy Groundhogs Day! (I don’t know if you “celebrate” it or not, but supposedly only 6 weeks left of winter! Woo!)

Of course that doesn’t mean much since today is also a snowy mess. Josh and I live 11 stories up in Madison and looking out our window all I can see is white/gray. I can barely see individual flakes courtesy of the fog and wind. It’s actually kind of cool.

We first heard that Madison was going to be getting hit by a snowstorm at church from the Pastor. You see, we don’t have cable or pay attention to the news. And let’s be honest, the weathermen are never correct anyways, so what’s the point.

After the service we googled what exactly we were in for this week.

Naturally every website was different and the expected snowfall ranged from 14+ inches to 2 inches, so we really didn’t know what was on the way. And now it’s here. The “blizzard” that had everyone ready to cancel events and school.

Isn’t it interesting that something like the threat of snow can turn people’s lives upside down? I mean yesterday the grocery stores I went to were crazy crowded and the traffic was insane. I saw posts that schools were cancelling for today, last night! There wasn’t even a flurry yet!

I understand that snow can cause a lot of problems, but I feel like as a society we have become incredibly jumpy about snow. It seems like every time snow is in the forecast we are told that it’s going to be “blizzard” or “winter weather warnings” are being put out. What was the turning point? When did we start jumping the gun on the weather? I remember being in grade school trudging down the driveway to catch the bus with snow up past my ankles and thick flakes were still coming down. Even in college when I was commuting when every other school was getting cancelled I was driving to class.

I’m open to theories. What made our society this way with snow?