It's snowing but the weather outside's not frightening

 Just a moment ago I stepped outside and noticed that some sort of frozen precipitation is falling along with the rain. It looks like our first winter storm of the season is starting to take shape.

 The agency I work part-time for put their employees in this region on administrative leave beginning at noon because of the winter storm. That just means we get to go home early. It’s no big deal for me since I was only supposed to work until 1:30 p.m. I came home after lunch and took a nap, waking at 1:30 p.m. I know. Life is hard.

 This is the  first time I can remember the National Weather Service — our station is out of Lake Charles, La., — actually predicting snow since I have been living back in the Beaumont area for the last four years. Perhaps they did last year when it snowed on Dec. 11 and I just don’t remember it. But here is how Lake Charles forecaster Sam Shamburger prognosticates the snow fall in an updated version of the latest weather forecast discussion:

   ” AT THIS TIME…OUR CURRENT FORECAST SNOW TOTALS OF 1 TO
    3 INCHES IN NORTHERN ZONES AND UP TO 2 INCHES IN SOUTHERN ZONES
    STILL APPEARS REASONABLE.”

 Sorry, the CAPS are the weather service’s not mine.

 Now if you live in Minnesota or New Hampshire or Siberia or any other place snowfall is a common occurrence, you might wonder what the fuss is about. The answer is that it doesn’t snow — at least in measurable amounts — very often in Beaumont, Texas. The fact that it did last year and a measurable snowfall is expected this evening is kind of like seeing a group of Republicans sporting “Raise My Taxes. Please! T-shirts.

 Just how rare are measurable snowfalls on the upper Texas-Western Louisiana coast? Well, Beaumont has had 17 measurable snowfalls since 1895, according to NWS records. A measurable snowfall occurs on average once every 7 years here with January being  the average month for such an event. I don’t know if this is some kind of recording error or not, but these records indicate the largest snowfall on record  being 30 inches on Feb. 14, 1895. People back then must’ve thought the world was ending. The second greatest snowfall was 4.4 inches in 1960, followed by 3 inches in January 1973. The latter snow I remember as I lived about 60 miles northeast of where I now live.

 The 1973 snowfall was fun. I was a junior in high school and this was also the first snowfall in which I drove. It was quite enjoyable because I lived in a small town and no one, it seems, ventured out on the roads except for fools such as me.

 Last year’s snowfall, which was the earliest on record and will be beaten out of that title if this storm pans out, was the eighth greatest amount of measurable snow on record at 1.8 inches.

 I made some kind of remark on Facebook last night concerning the impending snow storm trying to be funny. An old friend from high school scolded me with an emoticon because she didn’t get the reference I made and she was excited about the prospect of snow. I later wrote that I was as well.

 For all the problems snow can bring to probably most or a sizeable amount of Americans who experience it regularly before, during and after Winter, I feel the rare snow in areas of Texas where I have spent most of my life as a rather cleansing event. I don’t mean cleansing in a physical sense but more in terms of the human psyche.

 In places where snow doesn’t often fall there are kids who get to revel in its charms while older folks get to think of snows past when they were younger and played in it making snowmen or were engaged in snowball fights. Of course, some older folks probably had to walk 20 miles in the snow to school and they scowl at just the thought of it. Others think of snow in terms of magic. And some also remember that they wished some sort of magic was available during snows  in which they were stuck in it or caught out in it on the shoulder of some lonesome interstate.

 But snow is what it is and looking outside I see that some of it is now beginning to fall, along with the rain and the temperature. Like the song says, “Let it snow … ” I’m off work, inside where it’s warm so, if there is magic to behold then let it commence. If it sticks I will post some pics.