Snow snow snow

Western upstate New York is getting some snow, like 77 inches of snow with another foot or two on the way. This is the stuff of lake effect snow storms. These storms pick up moisture as they move across the Great Lakes and then when they reach colder land, it all gets dumped as snow, snow that can fall at the rate of 3 to 5 inches an hour. TPP grew up there and attended college there and personally witnessed a 104" snow fall in 48 hours. Yikes!  What else is there to say. The pictures from the Buffalo region, studies in frozen black and white taken about 60 miles from TPP's childhood home near the shore of Lake Ontario, are familiar reminders of those winter snows, although TPP has not seen that type

of snow for more than 40 years now. TPP has had lake effect snow clog the space between his eyes and his glasses, a real white-out. Lake effect snow sometimes moves in as a wall-like front, one minute no snow is falling, then a few flurries appear, and then a curtain of snow is drawn across the scenery in front of you. TPP got caught about a mile from our campus when one of these snows moved in. Creeping along the road, or where you thought the road was because  nothing was in sight, but it was West Lake Road, so the shore of Lake Ontario was right there to the left, somewhere. And then out of the white a telephone post appeared just feet in front of the center of the hood of the car. Great! To which TPP had to ask, well, does anyone remember if the telephone poles are on the lake side of the road or not?  It seemed important to know. So far out here in the upper Midwest, it's been bitter cold and windy, terrible really, but no snow accumulation of any sort yet. TPP prefers the nostalgia to the real thing.

A day late and a maragarita short

It's been a long, busy weekend for the Phactors.  Cinco de Mayo just disappeared while we were being wined and dined, semi-feted as alumni, as TPP gave a lecture on behalf of a retiring mentor, curiously, a dual last official lecture for both of us. So here the Phactors be, sitting in the Syracuse airport drinking margaritas, a day late, waiting for transport back to the mid-west. Spring here is at least 8 days behind our very late mid-west spring. You notice other differences as well. Steamed clams. Yes, this area is close enough to salt water that people eat steamed clams, nice, plump, sweet ones, and washed down with a Genesee cream ale, sort of a nostalgic beverage from our college years.  Seafood is a lot more common and diverse. So is the Italian food. A favorite Italian deli was totally unchanged from our college days over 45 years ago, as was a candy store, and a submarine sandwich shop, and the two best Italian restaurants in town (we ate in both). The student body is more diverse than the mid-west too; this is New York State. Sunday night there was a spectacular sunset over Lake Ontario to the west and a massive rainbow to the east. As always our college and college town, Oswego, New York, was a combination of some things never change and new things, both good and bad. Oswego is a bit more of some things never change than lots of places it seems. A favorite lakeside food stand must be in a time warp. It was wonderful. New science facilities had TPP completely disoriented, but the college has a new greenhouse that needs his help; a care package will be forth coming. And the lecture was well received, so mission accomplished.  

Weather Forecast - Snow

Although the upper midwest of the USA does have real winters, they are nothing in comparison to the winters of my youth in upstate New York, in particular the snow belt along the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario. Today there are all manner of dire predictions of 8-18 inches of snowfall during the next 24 hrs. But generally, in fact, mostly, the actual snowfalls are quite short of the mark. Apparently the weather people like scaring everyone into good behaviors and smart actions, although these SW to NE storm tracks are difficult to predict and if you are right in the path, you can get clobbered while an area only 50 miles away from the narrow storm track will only get a couple of inches. In upstate New York when they warned you about heavy snow (no one would notice just 6-8 inches more) you immediately ran out and bought beer, bread, peanut butter, ping pong balls, you know all the necessities so that you could survive if a big snow fall was realized. During the Phactor's freshman year in college on the shores of Lake Ontario an actual snowfall of 104 inches (+260 cm) was recorded in 48 hrs. We could toboggan out a 2nd story window, and it took a week to dig out. Good thing the lake was there so you had a place to put it all. And even more impressively, that is not the snowfall record for the state. A little town to the east, Red Creek perhaps, received 78" of snow in just 24 hrs. So no worries there except that anything more than 5-6 inches is more than they can deal with. When you have to tie a fishing pole to your car antenna and put a flag on it so people can see you coming up to an intersections, why then you've got some snow. The image is of a colleague's driveway.