It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity

This is a view from my back door looking south.

This is a view from my back door looking east.

This is another view from my back door looking east.















We didn’t get half an inch of snow. We got three inches of snow.

That is not really the problem.

The problem in this part of the world is ice.

Snowjam 2014 has hit North Georgia, and it is very reminiscent of Snowjam 1982.

Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of cars were abandoned yesterday on local roads and highways after hours of getting nowhere fast. Many, many people walked for miles to get to their homes. It took 6.5 hours for one of our sons to drive his car eight miles. Our other son left his car in a bank’s parking lot and walked the last four miles to his house. Lots of people spent the night in their cars or in school gymnasiums.

This morning the temperature is 9 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind chill factor is below zero.

Our daughter’s family in Alabama fared no better.

As Atlanta’s WSB radio station used to say, Welcome South, brother.

North Georgians can now die happy

Snow began falling about 11:00 this morning.

The roofs are now white.

The sidewalks are now white.

The grass in our yard is now white.

It is now 1:30 in the afternoon.

The snow continues to fall.

We may receive as much as half an inch with drifts approaching one inch.

Traffic has come to a complete halt.

All the schools have been closed.

All of us are stocked up on milk, bread, and toilet paper until this monster storm ends.

We feel a close kinship with the residents of Chicago, Illinois; Flint, Michigan; and Minot, North Dakota.

Pure as the driven slush

We have lived in the Atlanta area since 1975, and this winter of 2010-2011 has been most unusual. Some years we don’t get any snow at all. Some years we see only a few flurries. Several years may go by without any snow at all. One year the yellow forsythia bloomed in January. But occasionally we have had a brief winter wonderland. It happened in 1982, and 1993, and...well, I can’t pinpoint the dates, but there have been very few in the last 35 years.

This year, however, everything has been different. This morning we awoke to our fifth snowfall since mid-December. Not as much this time, but who cares? It snowed again!

I’m not going to show you pictures. Most of you already know what snow looks like.

Northerners and Europeans think we are crazy to get so excited over a little of the white stuff, and maybe they’re right.

According to Wikipedia, “White is a shade, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.

“White light can be generated in many ways. The sun is such a source, electric incandescence is another. Modern light sources are fluorescent lamps and light-emitting diodes. An object whose surface reflects back most of the light it receives and does not alter its color will appear white, unless it has very high specular reflection.

“Since white is the extreme end of the visual spectrum (in terms of both hue and shade), and since white objects -- such as clouds, snow and flowers -- appear often in nature, it has frequent symbolism. Human culture has many references to white, often related to purity and cleanness, whilst the high contrast between white and black is often used to represent opposite extremes.”

At least now you know why brides wear white and grooms wear black.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Something akin to ecstasy has overtaken North Georgia tonight--it is snowing! Church services have been canceled. School tomorrow is iffy. People are stocking up on milk, bread, and toilet paper. And why? It is snowing. Children's faces are plastered to the windows; parents have turned on the patio floodlights. Why? Because it is snowing.

Snow doesn't occur very often hereabouts. People don't own snow tires, snow blowers, snow ploughs, snow shovels, or snow shoes. Television newscasters spend as much time on "the great storm" as their weather-forecasting colleagues, thereby doubling its effect. The total accumulation may be only an inch or two, but no matter. When it snows in North Georgia, everything comes to a stop and we marvel anew at the goodness and severity of God. Goodness, because it has snowed. Severity, because it has snowed.

Lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Jule Styne said it best, way back in 1945:

"The weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"

Admittedly, "frightful" is a relative term. Northerners may snicker and talk about how silly we are, how this is nothing, how bad it got back in nineteen-whatever in Chicago or Detroit or wherever they previously called home, but Southerners don't care. Why? It is snowing!