Am I heartbroken that I didn't go? Uh. ...
The blizzard that was supposed to be last night and this morning wasn't and isn't -- at least, unless there's a whipsawing change to the storm that I haven't seen yet. From the beginning of the week up to, oh, Wednesday morning we were supposed to get upwards of a foot, and maybe even 15 inches. Then they were cutting back those enormous totals, but only slightly, to about a foot, which is still shitty. (That made me panic about the frozen garage door and the huge need to really use the snowblower for this storm; fortunately for me, I tried the door yesterday morning and it opened up just fine, thank God. Guess it really was the polar vortex that froze it shut and didn't thaw open until Friday.) And by Friday, looking online and watching TV, it appears that forecast were coalescing around a forecast of 6-10 inches of snow -- a total around which we've seen (and I've shoveled out of) before, but plenty bad.
As bad as the severity of the storm was, my more pressing concern was the timing. I was really scared that the early forecasts would be correct in saying that the snow would start in the late morning. See, my alumni group had a thing in the early afternoon, and there were a few people thinking that if it was going to be as bad as the weatherpeople said it would be, they would play it safe and cancel. Totally understandable, but I would freak out over the shitty turnout.
However, come Friday some forecasts were pushing the advent of the snow till about 1, which is when our shift would wrap up. As a result, nearly everyone who signed up attended the event -- whew! In fact, the sky was still dry when we got totally done, so I was able to come through on my plan on getting hot food from the local grocer and hunker down for the snowstorm that was coming later, but still coming hard.
But by, oh, 6 o'clock it hadn't really come. I had heard some crackling outside after I got home, which I think was the sleet and the freezing rain. Well, hell, I could have driven through that. But it was around 6 when I opened the front door and saw that, at last, the snow had begun, almost eight hours after some early forecasts said it was going to come.
I looked at my phone, thought about putting on my things and driving out to St. Paul. And then I decided to close the front door and go to my bed.
Why? Well, the main reason was the snowstorm. As late as it was, models said that the snow would get here, and get heavy, in the evening. And I didn't want to drive out in that. But I went outside to shovel after watching Saturday Night Live (in anticipation of the Whitecaps NWHL playoff game this afternoon) and there wasn't a foot of snow. There wasn't half a foot. We might not have three inches, in fact. Sure, snow was falling. But shit, I could have driven through that -- carefully and slowly, of course.
But, do I regret it? Well, no, not really. First of all, the skies and roads looked bad, and I didn't want to brave the weather if I thought it was going to get worse. Plus, although I think I could have gotten around OK, I don't know for sure that, even with the much smaller amount of snow, it would pile up on my driveway to the point where I wouldn't be able to drive my car up onto it. (Not for nothing, but looking online, there were many spinouts and accidents on the road last night.) Plus (and this does have something to do with my thinking even though that's not readily apparent) I remember last year, where I got a ticket to the game through the box office but it was standing room only and my vantage point from the upper deck kind of sucked. And then there's the time I got rejected for a credential; I always found it kind of odd that I would go back to an event that rejected me as a reporter.
But all those reasons could be me just rationalizing. I think I could've gone, gotten a ticket (heard it was far from a sellout; I wasn't the only one hunkering down at home because of The Snowstorm That Wasn't) and driven back home just fine. Could I be made at the weather people for overestimating how bad this storm would be? Yeah, but I don't want to be like all those other people who will complain that the meteorologists don't know anything. Those people think meteorologists are God and they better know everything before it happens. Bullshit. They're not perfect. Nobody is. And besides, if they were wrong and it turns out the weather wasn't as bad as they predicted, isn't that a good thing?
I guess I have a hard time feeling I got screwed, even though the Class AA Boys' State Hockey Championship Game was a fantastic one. Maybe I should care more than I do, but I don't.
The blizzard that was supposed to be last night and this morning wasn't and isn't -- at least, unless there's a whipsawing change to the storm that I haven't seen yet. From the beginning of the week up to, oh, Wednesday morning we were supposed to get upwards of a foot, and maybe even 15 inches. Then they were cutting back those enormous totals, but only slightly, to about a foot, which is still shitty. (That made me panic about the frozen garage door and the huge need to really use the snowblower for this storm; fortunately for me, I tried the door yesterday morning and it opened up just fine, thank God. Guess it really was the polar vortex that froze it shut and didn't thaw open until Friday.) And by Friday, looking online and watching TV, it appears that forecast were coalescing around a forecast of 6-10 inches of snow -- a total around which we've seen (and I've shoveled out of) before, but plenty bad.
As bad as the severity of the storm was, my more pressing concern was the timing. I was really scared that the early forecasts would be correct in saying that the snow would start in the late morning. See, my alumni group had a thing in the early afternoon, and there were a few people thinking that if it was going to be as bad as the weatherpeople said it would be, they would play it safe and cancel. Totally understandable, but I would freak out over the shitty turnout.
However, come Friday some forecasts were pushing the advent of the snow till about 1, which is when our shift would wrap up. As a result, nearly everyone who signed up attended the event -- whew! In fact, the sky was still dry when we got totally done, so I was able to come through on my plan on getting hot food from the local grocer and hunker down for the snowstorm that was coming later, but still coming hard.
But by, oh, 6 o'clock it hadn't really come. I had heard some crackling outside after I got home, which I think was the sleet and the freezing rain. Well, hell, I could have driven through that. But it was around 6 when I opened the front door and saw that, at last, the snow had begun, almost eight hours after some early forecasts said it was going to come.
I looked at my phone, thought about putting on my things and driving out to St. Paul. And then I decided to close the front door and go to my bed.
Why? Well, the main reason was the snowstorm. As late as it was, models said that the snow would get here, and get heavy, in the evening. And I didn't want to drive out in that. But I went outside to shovel after watching Saturday Night Live (in anticipation of the Whitecaps NWHL playoff game this afternoon) and there wasn't a foot of snow. There wasn't half a foot. We might not have three inches, in fact. Sure, snow was falling. But shit, I could have driven through that -- carefully and slowly, of course.
But, do I regret it? Well, no, not really. First of all, the skies and roads looked bad, and I didn't want to brave the weather if I thought it was going to get worse. Plus, although I think I could have gotten around OK, I don't know for sure that, even with the much smaller amount of snow, it would pile up on my driveway to the point where I wouldn't be able to drive my car up onto it. (Not for nothing, but looking online, there were many spinouts and accidents on the road last night.) Plus (and this does have something to do with my thinking even though that's not readily apparent) I remember last year, where I got a ticket to the game through the box office but it was standing room only and my vantage point from the upper deck kind of sucked. And then there's the time I got rejected for a credential; I always found it kind of odd that I would go back to an event that rejected me as a reporter.
But all those reasons could be me just rationalizing. I think I could've gone, gotten a ticket (heard it was far from a sellout; I wasn't the only one hunkering down at home because of The Snowstorm That Wasn't) and driven back home just fine. Could I be made at the weather people for overestimating how bad this storm would be? Yeah, but I don't want to be like all those other people who will complain that the meteorologists don't know anything. Those people think meteorologists are God and they better know everything before it happens. Bullshit. They're not perfect. Nobody is. And besides, if they were wrong and it turns out the weather wasn't as bad as they predicted, isn't that a good thing?
I guess I have a hard time feeling I got screwed, even though the Class AA Boys' State Hockey Championship Game was a fantastic one. Maybe I should care more than I do, but I don't.
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