The storm was huge, in that it covered nearly the entire nation and places that rarely get snow, like parts of California, got some. It's newsworthy when snow falls in spots that aren't supposed to get snow but I live in Minnesota, where it's newsworthy if we don't get snow.
In the 21st century, it has seemed that every weather event has evoked panic, sensationalism and hysteria...not that every event is worth all that emotion, just that the disseminators of information, the news media, has forgotten that there are emotions short of screaming, run for your life full on panic. For instance, in the early days of last week, we were barraged with warnings to stock up and hunker down, the skies were about to drop unprecedented amounts of death dealing snow, the schools closed and we'd all be lucky to survive. 8 to 20 inches!! was expected to fall over the course of 48 hours.
Several thoughts:
1.) 8" to 20" is a very wide window. There's 12 inches between those numbers. That's a very 'cover all your bases' prediction. But then, it was a large storm, dropping snow over thousands of miles; you can't expect the precipitation to be uniform.
2.) 8" is still a lot of snow. It's enough to make driving a nightmare.
3.) 20" is a lot of snow but hardly unprecedented. We get that much dumped on us at once every five or ten years.
To hear the weather forecasters, you'd have thought it was 8 to 20" of toads we were expecting to fall from the skies. This is the way every measurable snowfall is greeted by our media.
Constant overhype tends to have a deadening effect. Eventually, people get pissed off by the lack of toads.
We got 17" here in my neighborhood. That's a very respectable fall of snow but apparently lots of folks were disappointed by how easily life went on. When you preach that the end is near long enough, those who liquidated their assets and waited for the mothership to collect them are angry when morning comes and they find they have to go back to work.
It's winter. Snow should be expected. Keep your shovels handy, your snow blowers gassed up and a supply of salt and grit in your garage. It's not that hard and it's not that scary.
Once upon a time, we knew this.
February marks my Mom's birthday! She is 88 years old and enjoying every minute of it. She plays bridge two or three days a week, still goes out to lunch with her friends and is a medical marvel. She was diagnosed three years ago with a treatable but incurable condition that will eventually kill her. At least, the doctors said it would but they also told her she had a year to 18 months. She can't walk very fast, her shoulders don't work at all and she needs some help navigating stairs but she's doing great for someone who was supposed to have been dead for a year! She'll go when she's not having fun anymore. We had a huge party for her at my brother Andy's house. Vi made a huge pot of chili, with all the fixin's and I brought along my Mom's favorite cake: white with burnt almond frosting. All 6 of my grandkids made the party and in fact, BoopityBoop went home with Ty and Megan, so they got to have a fun weekend sleepover with Xena, Babalouie and Kitten. Three days later, two of them tested positive for strep throat and two others had a stomach bug but hey! that's just winter with kids.
My sister Margy and her husband Jeff flew in for the party. Jeff has recently retired, after practicing medicine for 30 years. For the first time in his life, he can take a few days off for fun. In fact, he can now take all his days off for fun. Weird. It was great to see them both!
Jeff is one of the reasons I never bought into the left brain/right brain theories of how people think, ie: arts or sciences. Jeff is a scientist, a doctor, a musician, a designer and a very talented draftsman. I actually know lots of people who are perfectly comfortable straddling the left/right brain divide. People are complicated and a lot more interesting than the stupid theories thought up to categorize them.
Hmmm...the theme of this post seems to be: 'experts' are only guessing, just like the rest of us.