Winter Begins

On the afternoon I arrived in Lyon, flurries danced with the wind and on the TV monitors at the airport the weatherman predicted the next four days to be wintry and snowy. While standing in line with the rest of my fellow passengers waiting for our luggage I had already sent an SMS message to the Italian in panic: IT IS SNOWING!!! ARGH!!!!

His return call was quick, assuring me that winter in France was nothing like what I am used to in New York. He went on to say that anything more than an inch of snow would be a major disaster whereas in Manhattan, we are used to way more than that.

I found out that the winds from the Atlantic Ocean warms up the air and doesn't make for sufficient conditions for huge amounts of snow. Along the US East Coast, however many thanks to the many lakes that dot our landscape, winters can be very very harsh.

This Friday morning as I stepped out of my apartment building, I was confronted by a winter wonderland. Snow had started to fall at 4AM and four hours later, there must have been about 3 inches of it everywhere. My world had suddenly been painted in white and honestly, even for a non-fan of winter, this is a beautiful sight. White snow everywhere - except for the streets, everywhere else snow had not yet been touched by the salt that many use to sprinkle on the sidewalks to melt it, not yet yellow because the dogs weren't taking their strolls yet and not yet slushy. Just perfect white dusting everywhere.



As I walked to the subway station however, it felt as though I was in a snowball fight with the heavens. Huge bits of snow flew everywhere and there was no way you could get away from it. No graceful fragile snowflakes like in Lyon here - we had New York snow. The kind that was determined to beat the records in terms of accumulations.

I took more pictures from my office window, after surviving the commute. The visibility was probably a block away. They say by 10AM there was already 5 inches of snow in Central Park. Almost an inch of snow an hour had been descending on us.




And then after lunch, the snowfall stopped, the gray clouds dissipated and the sun came out. The skies were blue and it was very bright everywhere. It was even more beautiful!




The difference 9 hours can make weather-wise when you are in New York City. In the end, six inches of snow had fallen on Central Park. I stayed in the office despite the urge to play hookie and enjoy the park - my favorite past time after a snowstorm. Probably because as I child I have never had th chance to play in snow. So for me, til now it is of childish delight to walk through knee deep fresh snow on the pathways around the huge park, walk the kids sled and just embrace the whole scenery.

And winter doesn't officially begin until 21 December 2005!

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