Interglacial

It’s official, we’re number one—the D.C. area has broken the record for snowfall set in the winter of 1899. Hooray. We topped the charts at 55.6 inches of the stuff. This may seem trivial to someone from oh, say, Buffalo where they probably get this much in August, but then we don’t have the experience or the equipment to deal with a snowpocalypse of these proportions. Drinks on the house. Little kids, when they are old and creaky, will tell their grandchildren “I remember back during the winter of aught 10. You couldn’t see above the snow and we had to walk to school in the blizzard. Up hill. Both ways. And the snow was flying, the wind was blowing, the wolves were howling and the volcano was erupting to boot.” Sure grandma. Maybe some future president has noted the ungodly amounts of snow in his or her journal just like Washington and Jefferson did back in the terrible winter of 1722.

Here in Northern Virginia, we get ready for a big snow by emptying the stores. Bread, milk, and toilet paper are the first to go. My daughter and I thought we would be clever and went to the supermarket two days before the onslaught of the first big storm back in early February. Ha! Shelves were already empty and we waited to check out for an hour and a half. The line actually did move, people were friendly, and we spent the time playing word games involving the contents of our cart.

Come the snow, and I was getting cabin fever at inch two. I took walks with the dog, spent time on line, worked on projects as the snow began piling deeper throughout the weekend. When it was over and the familiar sound of shovels on pavement began to ring through the neighborhood, I went out and cleared the sidewalk and driveway. Not too bad a job, thank god for ibuprofen. When the next set hit, it was more of the same, except this time it took longer and longer to make any headway. It wasn’t so much shoveling as it was trenching—I felt like a World War I doughboy. My neighborhood now looks like trench warfare has broken out.

Cars in their driveways sit in snow revetments, waiting on the barrage.

Uncleared cars are humps in the snow covered landscape, looking for all the world like igloos with sideview mirrors. Snow plows leave several feet of snow in their wake, which needs to be moved before it turns to ice.

I dig down to the lower layers of where I think the sidewalk went and flashes of blue spark and glimmer. This is the color of glacier ice. It is also an early symptom of snow blindness where enough UV hits your retinas to cause sunburn. The worst part is when the retinas peel just like the skin on your arms at the beach. I’m told it feels like sand in your eyes. Antarctic explorers don’t wear sunglasses to look cool.

My bird feeders, filled just before the blizzard, are doing a land office business. The smaller birds have been supplanted by the big boys—starlings, blue jays, and the occasional woodpecker, all feeding on sunflower seed and suet. The little guys have to make do.


Snow is patient—this is how ice ages start. Pile it up high enough and it will last through the summer, to form a base for the next winter’s offerings. Keep it up long enough and the bottom layers compress to ice. Or you could just run a car over it a few times. Some of this stuff will still be here in June, remembering the glory days of the Pleistocene, which in geological terms, was only a few hours ago. Keep in mind—even with all the fuss about global warming, we are in what geologist call an “interglacial period”—the ice will be back. I think my driveway will be the tipping point causing the next advance of ice.