Old Man Winter Buries Berrien Springs

BERRIEN SPRINGS, Mich. -- Another foot of snow? Really? My first thought is where are we going to put it? Southwestern lower Michigan has already been buried under two huge snowstorms this winter and we haven't gotten rid of all that snow yet. And this one coming is being called "The Storm?" As if the other storms do not even merit the title? In the last storm, we had a good 2 feet of snow bury us in as many days. Our poor friends 20 miles south of us in South Bend, Ind., weren't so fortunate. They had three feet of snow over Jan. 7 and 8.

Luckily I was out of town -- three hours north at a pool tournament in Mount Pleasant, Mich., where they had a flake. My boyfriend, who stayed home, shoveled our driveway three times that day. Timing is everything.

But that's the thing about snow. It doesn't wait until it melts before it shows up again. It's snowing now. The blizzard has begun. I just let my cat in and he didn't have to tell me it was snowing. He showed me, with his black frozen whiskers and his soft black fur covered with wet white snow. The temperature is 19 degrees and dropping fast. The winds are picking up and you don't have to be outside to feel them. Old Man Winter is angry tonight. They've already canceled classes at most of the local schools for Wednesday. We're tough here in southwestern lower Michigan. But we're not stupid. There's no use going out of the house if you don't have to.

The weather forecast for tonight varies from 8 to 12 inches with 25 to 35 mph winds, according to Yahoo. Thursday could bring another 3 to 5 inches, with winds dropping all the way down to 20 to 30 mph. And Thursday night, just so Old Man Winter can prove to us that he's not senile yet, another 1 to 3 inches of snow will be delivered to us at no extra cost. But winds will be practically nonexistent at 10-20 mph. Add all that up and we are forecasted to get 12-20 inches of snow in the next day and a half.

Is that all?

That's comparable to last month's storms. WNDU says we've had the second snowiest January on record, only being surpassed by 1978's January. The stories I hear about 1968's Winter are even gloomier, but perhaps they just got too many inches of snow to count that year. South Bend reports January of 1978 gave us 86 inches of beautiful snow and 2011's January has been nowhere near as generous at 53 inches of the wonderful white stuff. But guess what? January's over. Bring on February (which, if you think positive, is only one month away from the month when Spring arrives.)

I am one of the fortunate ones. I work from home during the week and the only traveling I have to do between now and Thursday is a bowling league that might very well be canceled tomorrow night. So as long as I have my coffee and computer and enough wood to keep me warm, I'm good to go. Living in town helps too. If need be, I could always walk the 3 blocks to the supermarket.

So come on Old Man Winter! Show me what you got! I got a snow shovel and moon boots, and a 4 wheel drive Toyota. But seriously Old Man, isn't it about time you think about retiring down in Florida?