Adam’s Blog

.25 inch – Anxiety stage. Moderate panic from base personnel who just moved up here. Everyone starts watching for cancelations/delays
.50 inch – Hoarding stage. Since snow has been known to make travel difficult, most residents head to the store and buy the necessities. The necessities, in case you were wondering, appear to be toilet paper and beer.
.75 inch – Skid stage. Confused about how to drive in this strange substance that seems to show up unexpectedly the same time every year, Daytonians begin to fill up the ditches with abandoned cars that left the road of their own accord. Of course, sometimes they leave the road because of someone else’s Accord fishtailing across 4 lanes of I-675 and taking them out. If it is early in the morning some schools may begin to call delays and cancel morning kindergarden (note to self: sign up kid for morning kindergarden).
1 inch – Panic stage. Most of the time the snow has stopped by this point. If you see an inch, though, how far is it going to go? This uncertainty causes many schools to cancel or, if they are already in session, let out early. Some workplaces may also send an email to their employees to head home “before it gets too bad out there.” Further instilling this dread is the weather guy constantly breaking in to your “regularly scheduled program” to show traffic cams blinded by the snow, occasionally with some flashing lights half obscured by the flakes stuck to the lens. You can tell he’s starting to get a little too excited.
2 inches – Barricade stage. At this point it is really, really snowing. At least by Ohio standards, anyway. Many residents will decide nothing outside is worth risking their lives on two inches of powdery death. Besides, they already have toilet paper and beer, so what else do they need?
3 inches – Adventure stage. Most people are locked in at home, but for a few foolhardy examples of too much bravado and testosterone. The 4WD crowd has come out in force and are celebrating their vehicles’ ability to run at 70 MPH in spite of the weather. This short-lived high will soon be replaced by the realization that “four wheel drive” does not always equate to “four wheel stop.” Luckily the ditches have already been padded with a collection of other, smaller cars to lessen the blow.
4 inches – Historical stage. All local channels have been taken over by the weathermen who have been waiting for this moment since the end of tornado season. They are there to make sure you understand that a.) you should stay home, b.) you should keep your eyes on the crawl at the bottom to see if your events have been canceled and will remain canceled, c.) that this radar picture is from the “Channel 4 Super Ultra Radarmatic Precision Mapperizer 5000 Network,” d.) that they in fact are the Miami Valley’s best weather team even though they’re reading the same report that NOAA sent every other weather guy in the area and e.) this is the most snow that the Miami Valley has seen on the first Wednesday after the first full moon of January where the date is even since 1952 so it is “truly an historic event.” For the record,
5 inches- Blizzard stage. At this point it is officially a blizzard. Not really, but everyone who “lives through it” will sure talk it up later. Five inches of snow will dominate the talk around the office cooler for a good 2 weeks. In other news, the kids home from school/soccer practice/piano lessons/guitar hero tournaments/whatever are starting to get bored and, thus, annoying.
6 or more inches – Acceptance. At this point everything and anything that can be closed will be closed. With no one having any reason to leave their house, the roads slowly empty (except for the cars in the ditches, they’ll be there for a week or so). With the roads empty the snow crews decide there’s no real point to continue. With the road crews gone, the weather guy gets to say “treacherous” with increasing frequency. And every time he says it, one more person decides to stay home, thus fueling the process anew. The roads will be a disaster for at least 24 hours. On top of that, people start to run out of beer.