A look at snow, from both sides of the pond...

Being back in Buffalo means one very important thing: the dealing with absolutely shit ass winters. Buffalo is infamous for having long, cold and snow filled winters. Speaking to some of the foreign students that go to my school this year, almost all of them have been asked at at least once at some point while they were still living in their country, "Out of all the places in America, why Buffalo?!"

Amen.

The thing that sets Buffalonian winters out from most other winters is the lake effect. In brief description, Lake effect is heavy snow caused by a batch of cold air moving across a warm, and not frozen, lake (Lake Erie in this case). Warm water moves into the cold air , and as soon as it hits the colder shore, it dumps the snow, making for tough driving conditions, more snow than you would want to shovel ever, and a nice day to say "fuck it" and go back to sleep.

I.Hate.Buffalo.Winters.

Living here for 20 out of 21 years of my life gives me good reason to. Every year from October till March its the same damn thing. Unfortunately, also, any sort of snow fall makes the drivers on I-90 and I-290 and I-990 incredibly stupid. I hate driving in it.

I guess I was pretty spoiled this past year. Living in Kanazawa gave me something I hadn't seen in a long time: 4 seasons. Now, in Buffalo, there is a joke that we have all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, construction. And in most years that is true. Fall lasts all of 1 month at most, winter for 6 months, spring/winter for 3 (if we are lucky), and summer for 2. In Kanazawa this past year, the summers were nice, the fall beautiful and long, the winter short, and the spring full of cherry blossoms.

In the time I was in Kanazawa, it snowed twice. One time in January, another shortly before I went on a major tour of Japan in March. The nice thing about it is, people there don't tend to suck at driving during the winter, and the snow that year lasted for 3 days at most. Then it melted and we all felt better about life.

I miss Kanazawa winters.