My First Cbus Winter
As a resident of Northwest Ohio for 20 years, I assumed that when I moved to Columbus last September the weather would be very similar to that I had always experienced. As a tot, I loved playing in the snow, making snowmen, sledding, and snowmobiling through the rural landscape. However, as the last couple of snowstorms in Columbus have taught me, almost none of those are possible in Columbus.
First, the three - five degree temperature increase in Columbus seems to make all of the snow turn into sleet, freezing rain, or some other mixture of snow and rain on the way down; so there never seems to be a snowy accumulation. The worst part is when the slop then freezes and everything turns to ice. Luckily, this was very uncommon in Northwest Ohio, so I rarely had to worry about slipping and falling every time I walked out my front door. Finally, the worst part of my experience has been the fact that I’m forced to park on the street as the house that I reside in does not have a driveway.
On Friday night when I went out in the slush, it was relatively easy to get me car out, but when the snow plow came down our road later that night, it threw all of the slush up against my car and both of my left tires were completely covered in ice. After dumping endless buckets of steaming hot water on my tires Saturday and thawing the ice for over an hour, I was able to get my car. It was then that I decided that my best tool to fight the Columbus winters is not a snow shovel (nearly useless on ice); rather a hatchet to bust the ice. I picked up my first one today at target and was able to get my car out in under five minutes.