Snow is A-Comin'

So for the last few days they have been predicting that a major snowstorm shall be hitting the Washington Metro area and that it could potentially rival the 20+ inches of snow that hit our area in December 2009. Though it's still early, the weathermen seem to be quite confident that we are going to be whalloped and in an effort to be prepared, news agencies and government spokesmen have been asking residents to get ready for what could potentially be a very bad storm. Now anyone who has read my site before knows that I am a bit wary of weathermen and it's not because they are wrong or right, but because they choose to speak with so much confidence in their predictions but then don't apologize when their predictions are way off.

I remember a few years ago when our area was under similar warnings. For a week we had been warned that a storm was tracking through our area and would dump two feet (or more) of snow before the storm ended. It seemed possible and so everyone took the necessary precautions. Unfortunately (for the weathermen and residents farther north... as in New Jersey) the snow tracked beyond our area and we didn't have anything than broken clouds and sun. One pleasant side effect was that at least the grocery stores were relatively empty for the next few weeks because people had loaded up in anticipation of that storm. Then a week or two later the ramp up for fear of another storm began again and once again people braced and as luck would have it, nothing happened. It was a good thing of course for us but rather than admitting that they didn't know what the storm would do they explained it away by stating that it was simply blown farther north by tradewinds or some other such technical jargon.

Now I'm not arguing that it's a good or bad thing that these predictions are so hit or miss; I'll be the first to admit that it's a difficult thing to predict storms of this sort but a side effect of this effort to get people aware and then have nothing happen is like the boy who cried wolf. After a while people tend to become very jaded and just assume that the next time a major storm is predicted it probably won't hit again. Sure that may happen for the majority of cases but there are often those that defy the outliers. In this case I'm assuming that we'll get some snow in a few hours and that it may be significant as they've predicted and then I wonder whether I've made enough preparations. I'm not one to go and hoard bags and bags of toilet paper or water and milk. We live in an urban society; even if the power goes out we aren't going to suddenly revert to the stone age where fire was an essential component to life.

Sure there can be inconveniences but there's something called 'roughing it' which can make for a good experience. So for a few days you may not have access to the internet or to television. What difference does it make? As long as you can get to food and water you should be fine. I mean after all, no matter how bad things get, it' isn't like it's completely impossible to get the necessities a little farther away from where you live and work. All week people in the office have been speaking with baited breath waiting for Friday to see if the snow will actually arrive. the last few times they have predicted dustings we've ended up with more; perhaps that could be the case this time as well. Time will tell.