a.k.a. V.J.

My hometown got namechecked on ABC News the other day because of the weeklong snowstorm we’ve been experiencing. Not much happens in this burg, but we do have a history of national news outlets reporting on our blizzards. I guess it’s better than being one of those cities that only get news coverage for persistently high crime rates or rampant political corruption, but only marginally.

Not to come off as blasé, but TV news notwithstanding, this storm bas been pretty run-of-the-mill as these lake-effect blizzards go. We got a lot of snow dumped on us in a short time, but that’s nothing new for us. I think the reason for all the attention this time was our weather was part of a widespread system all across the Great Lakes, and our county still managed to get the worst of it.

At any rate, the pattern of these “weather events” is predictable: cold air from Canada moves across the relatively warm water of the Great Lakes (Lake Ontario specifically, in my area), which, through the miracles of science, generates large quantities of snow. Depending on the angle of the wind, your town might get hit with Snowmageddon, while areas just a few miles away are untouched. Over the course of a longer storm, shifting winds tend to angle the snow bands around like someone watering a lawn with a garden hose. So, if you were spared one day, you might get it the next. Or you might have alternating periods during the same day of whiteouts and clear skies. That might sound weird to someone who grew up outside the Snow Belt, but it’s just part of the rhythm of the season around here.

Here are a few shots of our snowy New Year: