First Snow of the Season*
It's not much but it's pretty
Growing up in California, (specifically in the bay area and then spending adult years in the Coachella Valley) most of my life has been framed with the old expression "Snow is a place you go, not a thing that happens".
Understanding that California is not a monolith and contains virtually every biome, for context I experienced active snow twice in my life during my time in the state; I distinctly remember watching the movie E.T. with my siblings when a neighbor knocked on the door shouting "IT'S SNOWING" and we all ran out to watch it fall. It was I wanna say the early 90's but it didn't stick on the ground so it wasn't like, record-worthy. (Historical archives of weather for San José show 1976 as the last time it snowed and stuck). The second time was going over the Grapevine driving to Palm Springs for Christmas from the Bay; messy, but pretty fucking magical.
That said, I've been to snowy places plenty - but it was basically never where I lived and never while it was actively snowing, until I moved to New England.
So here I am in Connecticut for the time being and honestly I've kinda been let down!! We get maybe 3-4 total snows per year (trending down since 2021) and this week marked our first snow of the...what do you even call it? Not "year" since it snowed in January but like, it's not officially winter yet? What's the 'fiscal year' equivalent of seasons? I hate that my brain went there.
Anyway - the weather forecast made a HUGE goddamn hubub about "heavy snow expected", "freezing temps", the whole thing - and then all we got was a tiny dusting of crystals that melted within 3 hours.
Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty but I'm feeling ripped off!! Our first year here we got not only snow on Thanksgiving day AND Christmas day, but new things I'd never heard of before like a 'Snow Squall' and 'Bomb Cyclone'. Look at this shit:
January 2022
State was love bombing us with weather!! Now it's burping and scratching its ass in front of us. Romance is dead, smdh