After 35 years, mostly spent in Minnesota, this is the
winter that finally broke me.
It didn’t seem like that was how it would be at the
beginning. November and December were significantly warmer than normal, and
precipitation lagged behind what the Twin Cities have come to expect from a
winter. It was a docile start. It wouldn’t last.
Thanksgiving rolled around, and it seemed already like the
winter was going to be interminable, despite the favorable weather to that
point. My wife and I were about to announce to friends and loved ones that we
were expecting, and keeping a lid on things was excruciating. After everyone
knew, we realized that we still had to wait through the winter to finally meet
our new twin boys.
But the weather still lulled us into believing we would have
an easy winter. For Christmas, we went down to visit in laws near Iowa City. My
mother in law lamented that there hadn’t been snow yet, and remarked upon how
badly she wanted a white Christmas. Fortunately, on the night before Christmas
Eve, it snowed, giving us a picturesque holiday.
That was the last time I was happy to see snow.
Before it started to get exceptionally snowy, it started to
get exceptionally chilly. Minnesota usually doesn’t see as much snow as some
have been led to believe, particularly at the heart of winter. There are often
some bouts with Alberta Clippers , but the Twin Cities don’t often contend with
the monolithic snow totals they do in the mountains, or even on the East Coast.
A cold, snowless winter wasn’t as unusual as it may have seemed at first.
Even if it was the type of winter most Minnesotan’s had
grown accustomed to, it was still extremely unpleasant, especially after such a
warm segue to the chill that started at the beginning of January. It was an epically
cold start to 2018, with full days, consecutive 24 hour periods which were
below 0. That’s uncomfortable for even the hardiest Minnesotans.
And then it moderated. It seemed like we were in good shape,
especially after a winter of near misses, with snow storms tracking north or
south or east of us. It was warmer and all seemed OK. That sensation wouldn’t
last long, however. We were ok for about a week before we caught our first
round of nastiness in 2018 right in the teeth. The Twin Cities were buried
under 5-8” of snow, depending on your local yardstick, at about the same time
Twins Fest was starting at Target Field, disrupting the team’s annual reminder
that summer was only a few months away.
A week later, it got really bad. The first backbreaking snow
of the year fell on a Monday, and nobody was ready for it. Offices and schools
tried to close ahead of time in order to brace for the impact, but as much as a
snow storm can be a crisis, this was a crisis. School children weren’t able to
make it home until midnight, thanks to terrible road conditions and crews that
couldn’t keep up with the mess. That’s not even to mention the cities that pulled
plows off the road because of the treacherous conditions, waiting to plow the
next day.
I feel it’s important to note that all of these cataclysmic
happenstances occurred in the Cities. Those busses that couldn’t get home were
in St. Paul, not the prairies of western Minnesota. I don’t remember a storm
ever being that much of an unmanageable catastrophe, outside of perhaps reading
a Laura Ingalls Wilder book in 2nd grade, but here we were, January
2018, completely lost.
Fortunately, some of the snow melted and roads were cleared
in time for the Super Bowl week. It was even balmy the weekend before the Big
Game, leading to Idina Menzel being ridiculed for being uncomfortable in temperatures
that were only in the 40s. It would get colder after she left.
Most of the work week following that opening weekend saw
temperatures plummet to below zero overnight. For a lot of the fans that came
into town, even those from Philadelphia and Boston, it was the coldest they’d
ever felt, to say the least of the assembled media from New York, or even
worse, Los Angeles. Not only was this a particularly nasty bout of cold air, it
came at exactly the same time that the world was looking at the Twin Cities.
If anyone thought that this was a good marketing maneuver
for the Twin Cities, they were mistaken. Minneapolis is full of great people
with great attitudes, but people don’t like cold, and Minneapolis had that in
spades. Darren Rovell of ESPN even said, before the game, that this would be
the last time the Twin Cities would ever host the Super Bowl. Nice work,
winter.
Eventually, the nasty cold weather abated. There were a few
cool spells, and some rounds of light snow. We were able to head to the
Brainerd Lakes for a vacation in mid-March without contending with massive
snowfalls. Winter, it seemed, was on the way out.
Alas, we hadn’t made it to April. April ultimately turned
out to be the snowiest winter on record in the state of Minnesota. We had a
bruising snow on April 4th, which seemed to be the worst it could
possibly be. Most of the Twin Cities collected half a foot, though some places
received considerably more. It wasn’t universally terrible, though, because
warm temperatures allowed for clear roads sooner rather than later.
April 4th is a late date for snow of any nature
in the Twin Cities, let alone half a foot. It was aberrant and unwelcomed, and
it wasn’t the last blow of the season.
10 days later, the Twin Cities suffered one of the heaviest
snow storms in their history. A foot and a half of heavy, wet snow smothered
the city. It was impossible to shovel, and was too dense for most snowblowers.
There was the promise of warmth around the corner (though it was loath to come
too quickly) but for much of the Twin Cities, we were snowed in. In April. (the
snowiest on record, as it would turn out)
I remember specifically my snowblower refusing to scoop that
snow and toss it. The late winter snow had overcome modern technology, like
antibiotic resistant bacteria. This winter had broken down our final resistance,
and left us dealing with its aftermath with shovels and ice chippers, as though
we had been knocked back a generation or two.
The winter of 2017-18 had officially taken down Minnesota’s
defenses. I was at a point where I was emotionally incapable of dealing with
another round of snow or cold, and the state had proven, more than once, to be
physically incapable of handling it.
Any time that there is a heavy winter like the last, cabin
fever starts to settle in. There is Netflix to binge upon nowadays, but that
can only take you so far. Too much time was spent on the internet by most
people. Adding to the stress and interminable nature if the winter was our
eager anticipation of two baby boys that were to arrive in the spring.
Also this winter, Toys R Us went belly up, taking Babies R
Us with it, sending my wife and I into a bit of a tailspin. Where do you even
get baby supplies without Babies R Us around? This was just another crisis, and
we had nothing but time to think about it.
We were bringing two children into the world, and it seemed
like that whole god-danged world was ending.
And so that’s where I was by mid-April. A babbling mess, not
in control of my emotions, nor my body as spastic muscle contractions gripped
me in the wake of shoveling 2 tons of snow. We didn’t even clear the full drive
way, just enough that we could blast our way out, so long as there was no
traffic in the way. I gave up. I was a broken shell of a man.
Then, the spring finally came. There was hope. It’s been
warmer and the sun is out. It took longer than it ever has, but because of
that, this spring feels even better than it ever has. Maybe soon, I will forget
about this tortuous winter that buckled my spirit.
Until the fall comes. Then I’m sure PTSD will come.
