By Lance Hamlin
I woke up at about 7:00, sat-up, and stretched in my new flannels. It’s been getting a little cold these past few nights. When I look out the window my head drops as it shakes slowly. Out past the frosted over windows is what some Minnesotans (including myself) would call the beginning of five months of hell, but for the rest “Winter”. On the ground there’s a fresh layer of white although still little enough that you can see a few patches of grass here and there. We all know this is just the beginning and what winter brings is nothing good.
Most aspects of your life have to be altered to protect the things that most people consider important. Comfort, it’s important to me. Winter, it kills it. Most days if you don’t dress like an Eskimo the wind and air temperature will let you know that you made the wrong decision.
Mobility, how important is mobility really. We need to work, go to school, have enough of the necessities, and places to keep us from boredom. All of these things require mobility. Winter turns these common and expected things into a hassle, sometimes a challenge, and occasionally a dangerous mission. With things like the skinnier roads and not being able to see if a car is coming because of the snow banks, our hearts have probably jumped so many times this winter that we will all have a heart attack by the year 2000. Your windshield and car are constantly stained with salt, which ends up rusting your car away, and snow is not as easy to see through as rain is so visibility can suck. You’d think that would be enough. Not even the worst part, the roads, excuse me but the roads go to S__. Tell me, how many times do you spin your car around in the middle of the road during summer, never {usually}, or how about slide right off the road. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t see a car off the road or hear about an accident. The snow-plows are lame. They go down the road after a heavy fall and all the snow just gets pushed into a nice mound in front of everyone’s driveway. The heavier traveled roads usually are plowed after it snows, but most back roads take a while and some never get plowed. To me one of the worst parts is the pot holes. The roads get so chewed up that if it keeps up I’m going to be driving along and hit a pot hole and my axle will just fall off. If you ask me, I think if we can get a man on the moon back in 1969, you think by 1996 they could come up with a road that makes it through one winter, but that’s just me. So as I said mobility is quite a hassle.
The biggest issue has to be safety. Sure it’s not that hard to stay safe in the winter. But if you don’t know what you’re doing winter can affect safety in many ways. The temperature on many days can do a lot of damage, frostbitten ears, fingers and toes, hypothermia, even death. To bring it back to the roads for a second the accident rate in winter is higher than spring, summer, and fall put together. In our winters we get a bunch of snow storms and a couple of blizzards.
The actual definition of a blizzard is a storm with 32 MPH or more winds, enough snow to limit visibility to 500 feet or less and temperature at -20 or less. Now to most people from Minnesota this is not a blizzard but just a good storm. To us a blizzard is a lot worse. We reach -35 to -45 in the southern half to -45 to -55 in the northern half. With the extreme at -60 on February 9, 1899 and on February 16, 1903, and most recently on February 1, 1996. A blizzard to be remembered hit on November 11, 1940. known as the Armistice Day Blizzard, considered the Storm of the Century. The death toll in Minnesota was 49 people, thousands of farm animals died with little protection from the violent winds. The forecast that day called for cooling temperature and a chance of flurries. The wind picked up to 75 MPH, the temperature dropped from the upper 30’s to -25 in just the first half of the day, with an accumulation of 15 to 30 inches of snow. The blizzard of 1909 left snow drifts up to 25 feet high. The storm that has to be one of my least favorite has to be an ice storm. The roads are hell and you have to catch yourself left and right from bailing. Ice accumulates on the power lines to the point they snap and everyone in an area goes without power for a while. In 1953 an ice storm left over 3 inches on the wires and put a lot of people in the hospital from being outside and getting hit by the ice.
So if you look at all of that you would agree winter is not a good season. All that is what we get. If I started talking about all the things that just aren’t there, this article would be a little too long. Everything I’ve said happens while winter is here – what about when it leaves? ONE BIG SLOPPY MESS. If it’s enough snow, flooding becomes a big problem. It can also turn into a disaster like in 1952 snow melting caused the upper Mississippi River to over flow and flooding caused 11 deaths and 198 million dollars worth of damage. The last way I’m going to stress this issue is through your wallets. Now think, how much more money do you spend because of winter? With the increased heating bill for your house and water, to the warmer clothes all the way down to washing the salt away on a nice day. The money goes a lot quicker. To end this article I’m going to give everyone a word of good advice. Move south!!! I know I am. (All of the statistical information on winter comes from your friendly Minnesota weatherguide calendar. Be sure and purchase one from a Mini-School student next fall.)