I’ve said before on this blog that the first step to prepare for Massachusetts weather is to throw all your preconceptions out the window. As further proof, this was the view from my apartment window about three days after last week’s predicted ten-inch “snowpocalypse”:
I’ve tried hard to come up with a name for the inch and a half we actually got, most of which immediately melted. I had wanted to involve the word “anticlimax,” but the best I got was “snowkay after all.” (If you think you can do better, please help!)
I received some helpful texts and Facebook messages from relatives in the lead-up to that day: “Bundle up!” “Hunker down!” “Layer!” These were sweet, but they reflected a typical misconception that I shared, too, before moving up here: that the most snow must mean the lowest temperatures. In fact, most of the coldest days in Cambridge are dry and windy, while the humidity associated with snow makes those days feel warmer.
Knowing that, along with envying the beautiful pictures coming out of New York and Washington (but feeling assured our city services could better handle the same), many of my classmates looked forward to the storm. The only unhappy ones were those with travel plans, and most of those were ruined anyway by weather in connecting cities.
So, as they say all the time up here, “If you don’t like the weather in Massachusetts, wait ten minutes.” I didn’t realize that referred to weather forecasts as well! But I’m sure there are some snowed-in citizens elsewhere on the East Coast whose turn it is to be jealous.
– Lea
