Oh, I’ve been hearing about them for a few years. The firm I work for is headquartered in DC — I worked in the LA office for several years before transferring out here. The thing is, we in LA were always making fun of the DC office because they seemed to have “snow days” where people just worked from home at the slightest sign of snow. Now, I’m hoping to be taking advantage of that.
“Mmm, looks like there might be a slight dusting out. Guess I’ll be forced to stay home and sit in my recliner with my laptop, the fireplace going, and the cats romping about the house. Woe is me!”
It’ll come. DC is kind of ridiculous with the closings, but that’s in part because the commuter range covers some pretty wide ground, including areas that get serious snow.
The Northeast had two of the shittiest winters in my memory the last two years (historic cold and snow). I’ll take 60 degree days in December thank you very much.
Me too. I’m trying hard not to hit people who whine about lack of snow when we’ve had almost a decade of winters with way way above normal snowfall in a row. Fortunately, only a handful are insane enough to whine rather than enjoy the unlikely gift of a warm December.
When my wife moved from the DC suburbs to the Chicago area to be with me, her family all gave her shit about how cold it’d be out here and the snow, etc. Since then, DC keeps having record car-burying snowfalls while the Chicago winters have been on the milder side. That’ll learn 'em.
Looking out my window, we’ve had a dusting of snow overnight, and there are still some flurries filtering down. All the roofs are white with about an inch, but since it is barely cold enough, the pavement is just wet. Still, snow everywhere. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!
I seem to recall that last December was pretty un-snowy and not terribly cold, so don’t get too upset yet. Last January is when everything went to hell in a handbasket.
I am so going to miss my fireplace this year (new place, no fireplace).
But I’ve still got the comfy chair and the cats, so all is well. And I’ve contemplated buying an electric “fireplace”.
I’ve been told by quite a few locally that my “insanity” will only last until around February. Given that I’ve never had to drive in icy conditions, that might well turn out to be true. But no one that knows me questions that I really and truly enjoy cold weather, if not the elements that come with it.
I mean, not really, of course. But we’ve all got to make sacrifices for the greater good sometimes.
If only! I think I’m the one who jinxed it by posting in another thread a little while ago about how much I loved winter and how I was looking forward to it. Now here I am in the proverbial Great White North and it’s practically shirt-sleeve weather. Tomorrow’s forecast is even worse – it would be “cool” if it was June instead of mid-December.
Major part of the reason is a strong El Nino that is really wrecking things for us winter lovers. There’s a mini-keg of Heineken in the garage that I got about a week ago thinking that the weather is bound to turn cold any day now. I just hope it gets cold enough to crack the thing open sometime before spring!
Most of the rest of the country likes to think the MidAtlantic region’s drivers can’t drive in the snow. The real problem is the combination of some of the worst traffic in the nation and weather that tends to hover at sleet / freezing rain / ice, not snow.
The difference is significant. During Carmageddonstorm of 2011 the snow hit just as rush hour began. In the end thousands of people just abandoned their cars on the highways and walked home. Half hour commutes lasted 8-10 hours, if lucky. And it wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. It had been a tough snowstorm to predict and the feds screwed up letting out workers at the wrong time, but no-one expected a sudden storm dumping a couple inches of sleet and snow each hour, including Thunder Snow. This storm we covered in 2014 on the beltway in PG County is not atypical of a DC storm…
I did mine a few weeks back. We did have a few nights that were cool enough that I enjoyed turning on the mattress pad to take the chill off the sheets.
