“In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.“
~Mark Twain

I thought I got a memo about the end of winter. Big Pink’s Porter staff swept through the unit last week. They were checking the convectors in preparation for the cut-over from warm to chill-water cooling for the summer. I was sweating on the street last week, hobbling along on my bad wheel.

I have broken the shorts out of long-term storage and been wearing them. Those are just a couple reasons why I am squirming a bit this morning. My pal Joe was the first to chime in on Saturday: “Snow in Western Pennsylvania,” he wrote, with the schadenfreude of someone who is not planning on flogging a rental Infiniti across
the high plateau of the Keystone State to meet obligations in the Little Village By the Bay.

I got up early to check Traffic land’s highway cameras on the route west. I felt good about what I saw in Pittsburgh- just wet. No accumulation. I streamed National Public Radio from the Iron City to see the local forecast, and then clicked over to the Weather Channel just to check the detailed forecast.

Crap. It hasn’t started yet. According to the gleeful graphics- bad weather makes for bigger ratings, I guess- the savage low pressure front is going to back northwestward across New York today and tonight, funneling bitter cold air down into the back of the tropical moisture.

“This strong Spring storm will bring heavy rain to eastern New England and heavy, wet snow to western parts of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland and northern West Virginia.”

“Five inches of snow,” I read, and up to a foot in the higher elevations. “Most valley areas should only see 1 to 5 inches, but a few isolated areas could get as much as twelve inches.”

Crap. Rain I can take. Heavy wet snow is something else. Five hours to Pittsburgh on clear roads.  Maybe I can get ahead of it- though I guess I will just have to take it low and slow and get over the mountains as best I can.

Was that Infiniti FX35 all wheel drive?  More from the road.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com