Being a southerner means I haven't seen as much snow as many others. I grew up hoping for snow. My area averaged 4 inches of snow per year. On rare occasions we would get a big snowstorm, the kind you remember for the rest of your life. March 1-2, 1980 was that event for me. We had nearly 2 feet in a weekend snowstorm. Loved it! I’m sure that feeling isn’t shared by most where snow is more common, but there are a lot of southerners like me who relish in the rare treat of seeing everything covered in a fresh blanket of snow. Beautiful!
Waking up to those rare mornings where the ground was covered in snow was as exciting as Christmas morning. If it were a school day, we would turn on the radio and listen for school closings. I quickly found I didn’t like songs by Journey and Air Supply because they were soooo long. Any long and slow song meant I had to wait even longer to find out about my school. For a child, a 4 to 5 minute wait can seem like forever. Oh, the anticipation! At that innocent time, hearing my school was on a regular schedule made me mad. School could be fun, but a snow day was much, much better.
Having a snow day is rare because southern snowflakes are especially vulnerable. Snowflakes are roughly 90% air and 10% ice crystal making them fragile. Snowflakes form around 10,000 feet above the ground. Many of them never survive the trip to Earth. They either sublimate (dry up) or melt to become rain. So, getting the weather conditions to be just right is an unusual event in parts of the south.
Snow isn’t a treat for all. I learned later in life some of the kids in my school would go hungry when school was out. Snow meant they didn’t get a school lunch that day. At home, they wouldn’t get to run inside to a hearty sandwich and hot bowl of soup after playing on sleds and making snowmen all morning.
Snowflakes are unique with a huge variety of shapes and sizes. The arrangement of molecules in a snowflake is nearly infinite. Individual snowflakes are fragile and unique just like each of us, but when banded together, they can change the day.