So, how's the weather?15:53 Oct 29 2008
Times Read: 1,134
So I travelled to Miami this past weekend to watch the Bills - Dolphins game. Yeah, the Bills stunk it up and got out played. That's sports, it happens.
Most of the Miami fans were gracious enough and the expected post-game jeers ensued. However, one thing always bugs me...
The snide, "Hope you enjoy your winter!" or the more common, "How's the weather there?"
Heck, when I travelled earlier in October to White Plains, NY (other side of the state) one of the people I had to work with there asked how much snow we have.
You're in New York too, dip shit. How much do you have?
Ok, Buffalo is a city in the north east United States. Like every other city in the north east, we have winter. That is part of living here. The idea that it snows here year-round though is just retarded. Plenty of other places in America get snow before we do every year. Plenty of other places get colder. With the exception of about 10 to 20 inches of lake effect snow per season (spread out over 4 months - so, maybe an inch per week?) our winters aren't much different than what you would get in Boston... or Detroit... or Cleveland. The benefit of living on the west side of the lake.
We get a couple good snowfalls each winter season. If we get snow in late October or November, it usually doesn't last long and melts away fast. It rarely goes below 10F most years and we always get crazy, random warm spells that melt away the snow during winter...
Yes, once in a while we get a snow storm that boggles the mind - like in December 2001 when we saw 72 inches in a 4 day span. It's rare, and yes to someone who has never seen it, it sounds scary.
But even then, the snow is moved. It's plowed, it's melted, It's piled into trucks and hauled out of the way, and within a day or so life is back to normal... there's just snow on the ground.
So what is the appropriate response to such a jeer?
"Enjoy my winter? I probably will. Hey, have fun with that next Cat 5 Hurricane you get!"
..or..
"Snow on the ground? Maybe a little... hey, how was that last tornado? Find your car yet?"
..or..
"Yeah, it can get cold... so how are those annual floods and mud-slides that destroy your house treating you?"
...stuff we don't have here.
Snow rarely destroys everything a person owns. People are never swept away in torrent of drifting snow. Just as many people in other places die in rain storms (usually from being stupid) as are killed because of whatever affect the snow has on our environment.
It snows, you move the snow, you get on with life. It's cold, you put on a coat, you get on with life.
It can snow from November until April here, and no one in other parts of the country will be collecting donations to help out those effected by... winter.
And hey, what sports have ever come out of hurricanes, tornadoes or earth quakes? We have a lot of fun in the winter here!
I guess what I'm trying to say is... if that is the most negative thing you can say about where I live... where I live must not be that bad. And odds are, where you live probably has just as many, and probably even worse weather characteristics...
Oh, and the summers? Average temperatures in the high-70's to mid-80's and nice breezes off the lake... I'll take that over triple-digit temperatures and humidity readings any day!
COMMENTS
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Morrigon
16:04 Oct 29 2008
Are you seriously going to let what people from Florida have to say about where you live bother you?
It's either whiners or old dying people. :P
sahahria
16:05 Oct 29 2008
Amen to our weather here!
StoneCrow
18:29 Oct 29 2008
When I was an instructor we got people from what they called the northern tier states, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho etc. Most all of them were missile bases and many of my students were cops. Now after the first couple I stopped asking how cold it got on the flat outside a silo cause I always got the same response "fucking freezing, what so you think?"...lol. I must be from Florida...or closer to reality California...heh.
artemka
18:37 Oct 29 2008
LOL they should go live in the Ukraine for a winter
If you're too cold, you wear clothes, shiver a bit, stay dry and survive
If you're too hot, you take off your clothes, you get ill and you die
birra
19:00 Oct 29 2008
That's it exactly Art. I've always said, it can get cold here... I put in a coat, hat, gloves.. and I'm comfortable out in the cold for hours.
In the south, in the summer... you can only get so naked. And even then, how much time can you spend until the heat and humidity gets you? Dehydrate? Heat exhaustion? Sun stroke?
A nice cool day, I feel alive and active.
People in the heat tend to get lethargic and tire quickly.
And what else do you get in those areas? Bugs the size of your head? Reptiles that can eat you? It becomes a bacteria breeding ground in the heat and humidity.
KCRC
23:13 Oct 29 2008
It's cold in the North East in the winter? Damn!
I've spent most of my life in the Northeast and somehow survived...Even enjoyed the winter...Sledding, Skiing, Ice Hockey all fun.
I spent ONE August in South Florida...NEVER again! The people who live there spend all summer inside or scooting from their Air conditioned car to the air conditioned mall and then to the air conditioned house again.
The Orange Bowl is a nice place to see a Game in October, November, December....But try wearing a University of Miami Marching Band uniform and sitting through an early season game in August.
I'll take my share of winter anytime.
Joli
01:03 Oct 30 2008
ouch
sPerAnZa
02:48 Oct 30 2008
Speaking as a southern that deals with the triple digit heat.... Thank god for daisy dukes. -.-