Wintry Mix

In the past few years, it seems more and more that the metro area is getting hit with what is known generically as a "wintry mix." What is a wintry mix, you ask? Basically, it is a fancy way for the weather people to say, "you might get some rain, some sleet, some ice, maybe snow. Have fun on the roads." What strikes me most of all though is the relative frequency of these mixes. By far, these 'wintry mixes' are outnumbering good old-fashioned snow storms, and seem to be so recent an occurrence that we're puzzled by them. When we're little, we learn that it's sunny, cloudy, rainy, or snowy out. Within the first few weeks of learning a foreign language, you learn how to say "it's raining" and "it's snowing (il pleut; il neige). You don't learn how to say: we will be in the midst of an ice storm.

I grew up in the 1980's - that legendary decade that besides for terrible fashion and music sense, gave New York a series of mild winters. I rarely had snow days; snow was not a regular form of weather until the early 90's. Back in the early 2000's, I remember being hit with nice, big blizzards of SNOW. Now, for the past two or three years, it is just ice storm after ice storm after ice storm. It hurts and scratches my face - you can't even remotely spend time outside like you could if big soft flakes of snow are swirling around you. It's much worse on the roads than snow. It doesn't make anything look pretty. And the worst, we don't get snow days!