Winter Weather Woes
Friday, December 14th, 2007I am driving to New Haven, Connecticut after work today to spend the weekend with a friend from college. And, as a result, I have been monitoring the weekend weather all week. Yesterday, Bucks County was on alert for an ice storm and Sunday it seems the entire Northeast is supposed to brace itself for a Nor’easter. We had some heavy rains here yesterday, but no ice storm. I’ll have to wait and see what Sunday brings, but I still plan on making the trip tonight. With more false predictions than right ones, or at least that seems to be the case, from the meteorologists, I always feel just a tiny bit skeptical when they warn us of impending bad weather. Hopefully, I won’t be eating my words come my drive home Sunday. At least today is delivering decent weather, slight fog, but mostly sun and temperatures in the mid-high forties.
I never had out-of-state family that we visited during the holidays and prior to college, I never had to venture out in bad weather. So, the weather never really affected my travel plans and I never really felt I had to be aware of the weather in advance. But, that all changed when I went away to college. When I chose Syracuse, I knew I was in for some bad weather. And trips home or back to school oftentimes became a lot longer due to creeping speeds and zero visibility on the highways. I had to cut trips home short to get back to school before a huge blizzard hit and for the first time in life, I wore a winter hat. I quickly lost all concern about looking “cool” when the temperature was below zero, the snow was blowing directly in my face and I had to walk to a final. And flipping my car over last year during a snowstorm has not helped assuage my fears of driving in bad weather one bit.
And now, I once again face weather interrupting my plans. As much as I like the seasons, sometimes I think it may be nice to live somewhere with moderate temperatures, no snow and no worries about bad driving conditions. But, it would be weirder not to have cold weather around Christmas. I think I’ll stick with the snow - road concerns and all.
-Kimberly Krol, circulation and public relations executive
