NEW RELEASES
Brrrrrrrrrr. Snow, snow go away….forever.
Oh. My. God. I’m freezing to death. How utterly ridiculous that on Friday we made the announcement that spring had sprung. We honestly didn’t think we were going to have yet ANOTHER cold snap. Two of the girls from our office were trapped in Albuquerque when they shut the airport due to weather. That is absurd. The rest of the country is enjoying spring and we’re freezing down here. What the hell is that all about?
My friend Kurt told me I could shut up about being cold and could complain about my snow flurries and icy rain when we got close to the 130 inches of snow they’ve gotten this year. I felt awful – 130 inches! That can’t be legal, I thought. The Anchorage-ites should file a formal complaint. No one should be expected to live that way. I mentioned this to my mother, expressing my sentiments of how awful I felt for Kurt and his family. I mostly felt awful because I hate nothing more than being cold. Kurt would also mention that I hate being hot, wet or wind-blown as well, but we don’t listen to Kurt when he starts name calling like that.
ANYWAY, I mentioned it to my mom. She made scoffing noise and announced that the year we moved to Flagstaff (1973) there was 200 inches. I rolled my eyes. How, I ask you, how could Flagstaff, ARIZONA get more snow than Anchorage, ALASKA? Clearly age was catching up with my mother and her memory was failing.
Here’s the thing though. She was totally right. Don’t you know I went home an Googled it. Flagstaff it turns out is one of the US Snowiest Cities according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The annual snowfall averages 100.0 inches. What the hell is that? I can’t believe my parents made me live there. Granted we moved back to the desert when I was six, but I still had to walk to the bus stop in the snow for two years. Two years!
Those crazy Flagstaff-ites and loony Alaskans can feel free to live with that white version of hell. I’ll happily stay down here in the desert and complain about the heat, thank you very much.
“White version of hell” thats some funny stuff right there.
Well, she had to look it up, hummmmm. Well I lived there and was very pregnant and had to come home at 1230 am in snowdrifts that were over my head. The winter between Oct 72 and May 1973 in the area where we lived never saw the ground. The weather bureau recorded 260 inches for the whole season. The reports you read now do not add it to the snow from the fall and winter of the season prior. It was hellacious!!! And don’t even get me started on the night I had to walk home two miles and was seven months pregnant because the snow plow had come in our areas a good six or seven hours prior to my leaving work. Thanks for doing the reasearch, oh skeptical daughter of mine! Now if she had been talking about Fairbanks, Alaska that would have been another story altogether.
I actually went to visit you folks in Flag during that winter–the night of the worst blizzard in 25 years or something. I arrived about 2 or 3 am (in a car with no heat–I wrapped a blanket around my legs) and promptly got stuck in the snow in Mountainaire, where the roads weren’t plowed. (Heck, they weren’t even paved back then!) I set out on foot to try and find your house, and stupidly went cross-country, not knowing where the ditches of deep snow were–I was just trying to find a house with a light on when half were vacant during winter. I got up to my crotch in snow, struggled to get one leg out and promptly set the other leg in to my crotch. You get the picture. Eventually your mom came looking for me, and when she found my empty car, she started calling my name into the darkness–eventually, we met up. The next morning my car was completely buried, because the plow had finally come along. Great fun! (I still prefer snow to 112 degrees any day.)