PHOTOGRAPH BY YANA PASKOVA/GETTY

We operate in locations where there can be extreme weather (though not the white variety), so we are reminded of the value of good description of weather events.  One of our favored essayists, specifically, reminded us today with fabulous made up words and reminders of literature, all while making small talk about the weather:

The threatened Snowpocalypse missed New York, more or less, making Monday morning’s panic look slightly absurd on Tuesday afternoon, as panics do when they turn out to be unneeded. On Monday afternoon, with the storm on the way and the blizzard warnings screeching, the lines in a Manhattan supermarket stretched from the cash registers deep into the paper towels and bottled spaghetti sauces, with a sudden shortage of carts causing shoppers to clutch bottles of water and cold meats to their bosoms, as though the items were small children being kept warm from the Cossacks. Presumably, the immigrant nature of New York has given us a sort of collective unconscious of Old World flight and refugee instincts. The irrationality of the purchases might have been clear enough. Lady ahead in the line: How do you imagine that you’re going to cook all that raw meat if the power goes out; and, if it doesn’t go out, what will you really have to worry about? But you were thinking this even as you clutched your own raw meat and water to your own worried heart.

For a Canadian or two in New York—I name no names, though my wife comes to mind—it seemed a little absurd: we didn’t even call this kind of thing a snowstorm when we were kids in Canada. Continue reading →