- Shadowfox1701 wrote:
- ... people keep telling me it's unseasonably warm. Me? I wouldn't know. I'm from West Palm Beach FL ...
Heh, yeah, anywhere north of Kentucky or so doesn't get much above 40F/4.5C (usually) this time of year and you can expect the temperature to keep dropping slightly, day-by-day until sometime around late January. Then it gradually starts to get warmer and warmer until some time around September. At that point the temperature is
supposed to drop pretty sharply over the course of a month or two, but this year it doesn't seem to be working out that way...
- Shadowfox1701 wrote:
- ... *sigh* I'll never understand the northern mentality regarding winter.
Surprisingly, (at least where I live) there is a pretty wide variety of opinions on northern winters. Most people (again, I can't speak for opinions outside of my area, which is in/around Madison, WI) don't really care one way or the other about the winter as long as they don't have to spend more than an hour a week shoveling snow and have a warm coat. However, some people can't stand the winters here and endlessly complain about it. Myself, I'm in the biggest minority of all (opinion-wise) who love the northern winters, I can't get enough of 'em... unless we get a hella lot of snow and I have to spend hours upon hours shoveling and/or if the temperature drops blow -15F/-26C, then winter can go screw itself as far as I'm concerned.
This also brings up something I've noticed, and I'm not trying to sound sexist or anything, but it's just what I've seen. Most women just don't seem to be able to handle the northern winters as well as most men, not to say that there aren't a fair amount of exceptions to the rule. I don't know if it's a biological thing or just not dressing warmly enough in favor of something more fashionable, which I see time and time again, or if it's just a macho thing where women feel more comfortable complaining about the cold (which for most men, among friends, warrants calling the complainer a 'wuss' (to use a more forum-friendly term) to say the least) but anyway, the bottom line is still the same. There does, however, seem to be a universal constant of something that sucks about northern winters: drivers. I can't explain it at all, but regardless of race, gender or even how long one has lived in the north, there's always someone on the roads that feels it's necessary at the first sign of snow to drive between 5 and 20 ******* mother ****ing *************** **************** miles per hour down the *********** ************** ********* highway where the speed limit is 55MPH. I've seen it before, it causes me endless road rage and reminds me why I will never carry a weapon of any kind (even a sword) in my car that isn't safely stored in the trunk. lol
EDIT: For those of you unfamiliar with cold weather driving, let me put it this way, it's kind of like driving in heavy rain. You don't want to go too fast because that's just asking for trouble, but unless there is a lot of ice on the roads or it's snowing
REALLY bad, there is no excuse for driving more than 5-10 MPH below the speed limit on back-roads* that aren't well plowed and on highways there is no excuse for driving below the speed limit at all, again unless there's ice or it's snowing really, really bad.
* Depending on the condition of the road because in the north, the annual transition from sub-freezing to warm weather puts a lot of stress on the roads. This tends to, well, destroy the roads by making them crack, buckle or otherwise disintegrate in places. That being said, a road with a lot of cracks/holes in it that gets covered with snow AND/OR ice can be very dangerous, so it is generally acceptable in the north to drive more slowly on back-roads and in residential areas during the winter.
