Today it snows in Pittsburgh. It snows as a last reminder of what a winter can do to one city.
To back up, this past winter in South-Western Pennsylvania, while not particularly long in contrast to other winters, was consistently snowy and miserable throughout its allotted three-month span. The season hit us hard, and wouldn’t let up for 90 days. It was a mockery almost; places like Alaska who nature intended to receive snow were finding unseasonably warm weather. They even had to re-route 100 miles of the annual Iditarod dog sled race because there wasn’t enough snow to give way for the travel. It was all tied up in North Eastern U.S.
Pittsburghers particularly had a miserable time with the weather. It was as if the winter was almost playing psychological warfare with us. For weekends, the snow would somewhat let up, just enough to look like a promising week ahead, and then BAM, Monday would be like a page out of a Nordic Biblical tale. Weather forecasters became the most hated profession, and rightfully so. They would always bounce in on the evening news as if they had something relevant to say, and pre-empt their forecasts with, “and we’ll see if there’s any chance of this snow letting up in the next week.” We knew there wasn’t, and we hated them for teasing us about it.
The weather came at a bad time for Pittsburghers, who were coping with the end of Steeler season and beginning to really feel the effects of a bad economy sink into the workforce. It seems one of the saving graces a city can have is it’s weather. If you have a wonderful arts scene, a lovely city layout, beautiful roads or an efficient mass transit, it all seems to mean jack when your citizens are staring at white stuff 90 days a year. Add to that the Pittsburgh driving dynamic that entirely collapses at the first sight of adverse weather, and you have an area that people have almost no reason to live in.
But the winter depression has lifted somewhat, and we’ve seen it go from winter to spring in 2 days flat. Pitt students went from parkas to thigh-highs over a single weekend, and the snow seemed to clear like, again, another Nordic Biblical passage.
I’m starting to wonder what a Nordic Biblical passage would be like. Hmm.
And then today, almost like Freddy Krueger getting his last cackle, his last laugh before returning in next year’s movie, the snow says goodbye today. In response, I know at least one city where 300,000 people are flipping the bird in farewell.