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Life in Boston December 8, 2005

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 2 comments

As I type, I am getting ready for the first real snowstorm of the season. Ah, snow in Boston.
I grew up in the Buffalo New York area. Ah ha! Some of you can see where this is going! Yes, Buffalo, Land of Snow (and a football team that can’t get it up, so to speak, or at least goes wide right). I grew up on the edge of a snow belt. A Snow Belt? I can hear MMM scratching her head now. What the hell is that?
Well, Buffalo is in the edge of beautiful Lake Erie. As the winds blow across the lake, you pick up moisture and bands of snow form. They tend to form in the same locations. My house was on the edge of one of these locations. Hence, a snow belt. The snow is also called Lake Effect (as in the lake causes the snow).  It is typical to have a forecast in Buffalo that goes like this " Tonight, expect 3-6inches, except in the Southtowns, where you can see up to a foot of the white stuff from Lake Effect. Tomorrow, temperatures will be in the lower teens and you can expect the snow belts to receive anywhere from 4-8 inches."
Note, nothing about school closings, nothing major. It was just a little snow!

Now, I live in the Metro Boston area. Snow brings fear to the natives. An inch is considered "bad". And sadly, I have to agree. You see, they don’t clean properly here. So the streets turn to ice very quickly. Add to that, the ocean is right next to Boston, so the daytime can get up to 37, melt the top layers, then down to 14 at night and Ice-o-rama!

Tomorrow, we are looking at 4-10 inches from sunrise to sunset. I am probably not coming into work tomorrow. I don’t trust the roads here. In Buffalo? hell yeah I would be out there. My first driving lesson was

"Here’s an empty parking lot (no light poles). Ok, accelerate. good, NOW HIT THE BRAKES REALLY HARD" Ok- that was your first skid. Did you control it? No? Ok, Try again. And again. And again until we got how to pump your brakes and steer into the skid.

There are serious questions here about if people really know who has the right of way in a traffic circle (curiously called rotaries here). I doubt they have skid training.

So, tomorrow I expect to toss a duraflame in the fireplace, and drink cocoa with my girls and watch the snow fall… Welcome to life in Boston.