THE FROZEN TUNDRA OF…THE SOUTH? – A snow day in the Deep South is a lot like Christmas morning.
You wake up early in the morning, excited by the potential of what’s waiting for you. You throw open the blinds or curtains, and take in the wonder of what the night left behind. And then you immediately get your siblings, or roommates, or spouse or whoever, and dive into it.
It’s such a rare treat, especially in the Deep South. We could launch into the science behind it, but essentially due to our proximity to the equator, snow in the South is more infrequent than a school from the Big 10 winning a National Championship in football. But when it hits, it’s a big deal.
Schools close, offices tell employees to work from home, and meteorologists hunker down. It doesn’t matter if it’s an inch or a foot of snow, you ain’t going anywhere but out to play in it.
Our northern and midwestern counterparts laugh at us. An inch of snow is fishing weather in those places. You don’t see us laughing when they get a heat wave of 85 degrees and humidity north of 60 percent—or as it’s known down here, a nice day in May—and are begging for relief, but I digress.
But play in it you do. It does not matter how old you are. You throw on whatever kind of layering and snow-resistant (or at least, snow hesitant) coats and pants and gloves, and run out the door. Snow days down here never seem as cold as you expect. Maybe it’s the adrenaline. Maybe it’s feeling like you’re in a dome of sorts, with the thick overcast skies and most of your surroundings covered in the same color. But for whatever reason, the cold just doesn’t seem to hit the same way down here as on non-snow days.
And it gets as cliche as possible on snow days too, just with a Southern spin. There are snowball fights, using pickup truck beds as bunkers and magnolia trees as cover. You’ll see the use trays, trash can covers, and cardboard boxes as sleds as kids of all ages find the biggest hill they can, sometimes using streets since no one’s driving—more on that later. The South also makes great snowmen. Sometimes they have pine cone noses and college football hats, and sometimes they have odd shapes, but they are always creative and unique. And they will be standing at least three days after the rest of the snow is gone.
And unlike the heat of summer, you have to be called in to get out of the snow. No one wants to miss a minute, because no one knows how long the snow will last. The vaunted “Blizzard of ‘93” lasted less than a week. Snowmaggedon 2014 was resolved in about four days.
Which brings us to why everything shuts down now when snow is forecasted: ice.
Ice is the only bad thing about the potential for snow in the South. Southerners can handle snow. Ice is another story.
Ice is what made Snowmaggedon 2014 so rough. Everything froze, worst of all, roads. No one saw that coming, and so figuring “it’s just a little snow,” most everyone went about their business, going to work and school.
Which caught everyone looking as folks were stranded, or in panic tried to make it home. And then got stuck at the office, or at school, or worse, stranded on the side of the road.
We’re just not equipped for ice. There wasn’t much point in having snowplows and sand and trucks for something that never happens. It would be like having a hurricane shelter in Connecticut; it’s probably good to have, but the odds of using it with any regularity are slim.
So that’s why everything shuts down when it even looks like snow and/or ice are on the way. Stay home, stock up on goods and water, and hunker down and take the day to play in the snow. (EDITOR’S NOTE: I still don’t understand why bread and milk, two of the most perishable products in grocery stores, are the two things that people are encouraged to get. One day, we’ll get to the bottom of this.)
And, like Christmas Day, a snow day winds down in a slow but bittersweet fashion. Nightfall closes in, and with next day the sun will probably come out and melt the snow. People will go back to work and school. And all that will be left are the memories made.
But my, what memories they are.
The Kudzu 