Timing - February 20, 2012

We Have Weather! Finally, a little snow is falling—wet, gloppy snow. Slushy, spring snow. But I'm told that yet another unseasonable week will end with a dash of January as we get down near or below zero... for a moment.

Anya is a little under the weather. She didn't get up until I was gone for the morning, and Ingrid took her out around 10:30 for a stroll. When I took her for a trip to the dog park, she pooped out and looked longingly at the gate after only 15 minutes. I took her home.

What a difference having a warmer road base makes. The roads tonight, driving back home through the snow, were just fine. All slush, even where the plows haven't salted or done anything else. Before tonight, we've had a bunch of light wet snowfalls on cold roads, which result in slipperiness all out of proportion to the modesty of the precipitation.

The winter of 2009-2010, we had a wet snowfall followed by a fast, bitter freeze. Minneapolis got out in front of plowing immediately, while St Paul's plowing began about 12 hours later. The result? St Paul had an inch or more of ice, which itself developed pot holes, and the whole rutted, bumpy mess lasted until the ice finally melted in March. Minneapolis had normal, snowy, not-too-bad streets.

Timing, the secret to comedy and any number of other things... including street plowing. Cities get this, and the big snow cities are not offering online real-time tracking of plows: see Chicago and New York.