I’m becoming of the mind that the New England area couldn’t work up a good winter nor’easter if they imported cold air directly from the arctic itself. God knows we had enough southern bred moisture in town these past few days. For 3 days now the meteorologists have been predicting a “major snow event” some of them even degrading themselves to actually call it a genuine old fashioned “northeaster” headed for this part of New England and although only the very top of the area was due for snow, I for one was definitely looking forward to it.

Now I’m not talking about a rip roaring, hell bent for leather, power killing, people freezing blizzard here. I’m talking about getting a good solid foot of snow. Heck, I would have settled for 8 to 10 inches of the white stuff, especially if it was just wet enough for making a snowman. Haven’t been able to make a good snowman in years around here and the forecasters had predicted that all this possible snow was going to be wet and heavy…perfect!

Never happened.

Early yesterday morning it was rain and sleet turning to all snow by mid-day–7 to 11 inches expected. By mid morning it was any rain turning to all snow by the afternoon–4 to 8 inches expected. By mid afternoon it was rain turning to snow–4 to 8 inches in the higher elevations and by 3:00 pm the storm that had never arrived was canceled and the storm alerts were taken down and packed away in a box and shoved under some meteorologists desk awaiting the next storm to be canceled.

All we actually got was a heavy mist and lots of fog. So much for building a snowman.

If you hadn’t noticed yet…I’m just complaining here.

Some of you I suppose, would say that this was a blessing; that winter storms are dangerous, cause accidents and all that, people running off the road and such well let me tell you…people run off the road all the time around here anyway. Even on dry pavement on a sunny day in July (mostly “out-of-stater’s” but that’s not the point here). What a good snowstorm does do is keep people honest. It breaks them in to a new winter’s driving. Even native Vermonters tend to lose the edge over the warm season here and the first storm of the winter sharpens everybody up and the initial accident toll for this first storm drops sharply downward for the rest of the winter. The later in the cold season it becomes before the first snowstorm does hit, the more dangerous it becomes for those on the road. The longer people have to wait for the snow and ice, the duller the edge becomes.

This, of course comes from personal experience and observation. Whether anyone believes or agrees with me is entirely another matter. Either way I’m downright sick and tired of nothing but gray, drippy skies and temperatures somewhere between 36 and 50 degrees for the past two months.

Ah well, we have the “long haul” till mud season to get through which gives us plenty of time to brew up a couple more hopefuls worth of snowstorms and there is a bright side to all this warm, gray and drippy if I think about it. It keeps the fuel oil bills down, the lights on and the later in the season it becomes before the real winter weather hits, the less time we’ll have to wait till spring.

I guess I can live with that.

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