This Winter, I’m Hoping for Disaster

While most of Boston University’s student population groaned at last Thursday’s snow debut, I couldn’t have been happier. From the minute the first few flakes turned the ground white, I turned giddy like a 6-year-old. The worse it got, the happier I became.

That’s the weird, somewhat selfish, relationship I have with snow. The more dangerous it is to be outside, the whiter the blacktop roads are and the higher the chance society will have to shut down, the warmer my little heart gets.

Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you how downtrodden I was at last winter’s dryness. It tugged at my heartstrings and made my stomach heavy with anxiety.

That’s why this winter I’m hoping for disaster. Okay, maybe not disaster. I obviously don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I want enough snow that all it takes to make a fort is to dig down—enough snow that the sidewalks on Commonwealth Avenue become tunnels from all the snow piled on either side in an attempt to make them passible.

However, things are not looking good. Although we can’t know for sure how snowy or how dry this winter will be until it actually happens, the (Old) Farmer’s Almanac can give us a pretty good idea (it boasts 80 percent accuracy).

The Almanac’s specific methods have been kept secret since the first one was published in Boston in 1792, but the Almanac’s website does give some idea of how it’s done:

“We employ three scientific disciplines to make our long-range predictions: solar science, the study of sunspots and other solar activity; climatology, the study of prevailing weather patterns; and meteorology, the study of the atmosphere. We predict weather trends and events by comparing solar patterns and historical weather conditions with current solar activity.”

For the Atlantic Corridor Region, which extends along the coast from Boston to Richmond, VA, the Almanac says:

“Winter will be colder and drier than normal, with snowfall below normal in the north and near normal in the south. The coldest periods will be from Christmas through early January and in early and mid-February. The snowiest periods will be in mid-December, just before Christmas, and in mid- to late February.”

As fate would have it, I’m in for another year of anguish over the reasonable weather conditions. But understand, it’s not about getting off school, although that’s always nice. It’s not even about fun snow activities. It’s about beauty. Everything and everyone is more beautiful in the snow.

There’s nothing like the patient quiet of a world halted by the soft thudding of snow flakes as they pile up, doing their job to paint the world white. When the sun comes out the next day and reveals their hard work, the whole world shimmers like a diamond—like the flakes are beaming at what they’ve done.

Who doesn’t want that?