Driving in a snow globe

One of the thrills of winter is, of course, snow.  The first snowfall of the year is always exciting, the effect on the landscape is dazzling.  The effect on driving… well… you get all the slipperyness (is that a word?) of driving in rain, but in the right conditions, it looks pretty even if the drivers are crazy.

When you move north, nobody warns you there are different types of snow.   It’s akin to rain in that sense, quite literally, except for the part where it’s frozen.  You can have anything from a light drizzle to a downpour of white, wet and packable snow (great for building, bad for shoveling) to dry, lightweight snow that blows all over the place (especially back to where you just shoveled it from).

It can fall straight down, as if someone just flipped the snow globe over and back again.  But sometimes, that snow globe is slightly askew instead, and you get to experience the effect of walking or driving into the oncoming snow.  In a heavy snow, that’s obviously a bad thing, with windshield wipers working furiously to keep up.

In a light snow, however, it has an idyllic effect as white bits swirl around you, paths altering with the wind impacts of vehicles around you.  That is when it feels like you’re driving in a nice snow globe, and you decelerate as you pass decorated houses to appreciate the holiday season.