The Weather (yawn!)

I’m going to write about something mundane and common today, the weather. Why? Because today the weather has been “normal” by German standards.

Normally, winters here in Germany are cold, not as cold as CT, but cold enough and dark and miserable. Not this year. This year has been strangely mild and seemed to just easily transition to spring. It’s been in the 50’s and 60’s for the most part for months. It snowed only a few times with notable accumulation only once. The ski resorts here in Europe were seriously hurting. There wasn’t even snow in parts of the Alps.

This is the first time that my husband has spent an entire winter here in Germany. He has been deployed for the past couple of winters and probably now thinks that all the complaining that I did about how awful the winter weather is here was exaggerated because this winter was so mild. I will admit, I cursed him on more than one occasion last year and the year before while cleaning off several inches of snow off my car, or his truck because the car wouldn’t start. I had to stand on the tires to clean the foot or so of snow off the truck. His truck had so much snow on it because he wasn’t here to use it or clean it off and I drove the car that we had for the most part, with the exception of that one horrible occasion. His ears must have been ringing. It was awful weather then, I swear. The locals said that they couldn’t remember when we’ve had that much snow.

This week, however, the cold and dreariness has returned and today was more like a typical winter day. I woke up to find ice on the roofs of houses and cars. Not a coating of ice, but more like a layer of hail. At lunchtime, the dark clouds rolled in and all of a sudden it started hailing. It looked like snow, but was pea-sized and hard like ice. This happened yesterday too although yesterday they temperature wasn’t cold enough for the snow to stick to anything, it sort of bounced off of everything. Today it stuck to your hair, your coat, car, the streets; everything. It lasted about twenty minutes and then stopped as abruptly as it started. About a half hour later, it started snowing; heavy snow, like a snow squall. You could barely see through it. It lasted for much of the late afternoon, but didn’t stick to the roads thank God, but did collect on the land. Crazy.

This weather prompted weather advisories because it has been predicted that we’re supposed to get at least nine inches. My employer and others on the base decided to let people leave early, just in case. When I left the building, the sun was shining. This is what normal weather is like here, fickle. It hasn’t started snowing again yet. According to a few weather websites, there’s a chance of snow tonight and tomorrow. I guess I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

As a native New Englander, you would think I wouldn’t have a problem with this, but I do. I hate driving in the snow. Yes, I am used to it, but it doesn’t mean I like it. I drive like an old person and I can just hear the expletives of the people stuck driving behind me, but I just can’t help it. I’ve never been in an accident while driving in the snow so that is not a factor of my fear. I’m not sure what it is. The last vehicle that I drove in the snow and ice in CT was a Ford Mustang, which is probably the worst car to drive in the snow. That could be a factor. It was awful. Complete strangers would walk up to me at the gas station and ask me why I was driving this car in the snow. It was the only car I had, what choice did I have? It was terrifying though.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to get away from this type of weather. We’d love to end up where we came from, South Eastern Connecticut, but land and real estate is so darn expensive there. He wants to purchase a fair amount of land, so we’ll have to go north and we’re looking at upstate New York. I am not thrilled about it, but will have to adjust as I always do, and just be happy that we’ll be on the same coast as our families.