markmarchesi.com

Every big storm has to have a catchy name.  That way the tv networks can refer back to it for years to come as a way of patting themselves on the back for their “award winning coverage”.  The truth is, we really don’t need the amount of dedicated airtime or the silly graphics that they employ for most serious weather events.  The amount of attention that gets redirected from real news to weather leading up to and during a big storm is disturbing.  And I think it is ridiculous when every available reporter has to put on their LL Bean parka and appear from a different part of the county to tell us how much snow each community is getting.  I would rather watch Judge Judy than see another interview with a city plow truck driver or a homeowner out shoveling his or her driveway.

This latest storm has now been dubbed the New Years Nor’easter because on January 2nd and 3rd 2010 a very large low pressure system came in from the Gulf of Maine via Nova Scotia and brought a fair amount of snow and high winds to the state.  It was a very unusual storm track, but after more than a week of intense media hype Portland didn’t quite see the twenty inch totals, major coastal flooding, or hurricane force winds heralded by local meteorologists.  To be fair, I think Bangor and points further Downeast did see worse conditions than us southerners.  The way they were telling it as of Monday night was that some communities are “still recovering”.

For my four year old daughter the excitement came not from how the storm was portrayed in the news, but because she looked out the window and saw the ground getting covered.  That meant a chance to finally go sledding, build the first snowman of the season, and try out the new snowball maker that my wife’s cousin got her for Christmas.  I also took her ice skating, so she was able to pack every outdoor winter activity in her repertoire into the holiday weekend.  It was a lot of fun for both of us.  And to cap it off I took a couple hours for myself and rode out to the beach for a late Sunday afternoon snowbound surf session.

Izzy building up her pile of ammo for the big snowball fight.

Driving down Sawyer Rd, warming my wetsuit gloves on the dash.

Higgins beach on January 3rd 2010 at 3pm.

When I first paddled out it was snowing pretty hard.  Snowing big fluffy white flakes.  Actually, they weren’t so much flakes as they were clusters.  Sometimes one would land on my wetsuit and stay frozen long enough for me to examine it’s intricate structure of sparkling ice crystals.  Between waves I sat and watched thousands of them float down from high above and disappear instantly into the dark and salty abyss.  The ocean’s surface was indifferent to their attack.  Unlike raindrops, these snowflakes were almost weightless and had no affect on the surface.

After a while the sky grew darker, the air got colder, wind picked up a little, and the form of precipitation changed into something more like freezing rain.  It made being in the forty degree water much less pleasant and stung my face when paddling.  Shortly thereafter I took a wave into the beach and headed for home - arriving just before dark.