AAAAUGH!!!! SNOW!!!

We got 4-6 inches of snow last night, not an unusual thing here in Denver in mid-January. And as much as I don't like snow, after a discussion I had with Heidi the other night, I think of it a bit differently now than I did before.

Personally, I'm a warm-weather guy; growing up in Oklahoma will do that to you. Oklahoma doesn't get a great deal of snow, even in the northern parts of the state. (Of course, it must be remembered that all of northern Oklahoma is still south of the southern Colorado border.) I lived most of my life just outside of Oklahoma City, and later in south Tulsa, and finally in Norman before I moved to Denver. We did get snow from time to time in the winter, usually once or twice a year as I recall, but it's usually light, more ice than snow, and it doesn't last more than 1-2 days at most. Oklahoma winters are usually very wet, but nearly all of it is rain rather than snow (as evidenced by the weather in the entire eastern half of Oklahoma today). Thunderstorms today with a possible tornado (never got confirmation of that report myself...alas, I can only watch from afar).

Snow isn't something that thrills me, as it does most folks here. To me, it's really more of a nuisance. I've been skiing, and it was fine, but I already have one expensive hobby. I don't really need another. I've been snowshoeing. I've been tubing. I've been sledding. Those are all fun things, but I don't suffocate if I don't do them. If I want snow, I'll drive to the mountains to see it. Snow to me is an annoyance. It does nothing but cause trouble here in the Denver metro...increasing drive times (the fact that we MUST drive in the snow here drives me to distraction), dirtying cars endlessly, increasing municipal and county budgets that must reserve funds for plow trucks, deicing chemicals, and drivers. I would guess that if the government and private entities that spend so much on those things in this city took that cash and put it into something better, it could really do some good.

But Heidi reminded me that pretty much everything here depends on snow. Skiing, indeed, all winter tourism obviously needs snow. But also, all the residents of the so-called Urban Corridor (essentially the north-south region directly east of the Front Range, running parallel to it, that encompasses Fort Collins, Loveland, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo) require lots of snowfall in the winter to refill the reservoirs and make sure there's plenty of water for the dry summer months. Basically, Denver is a desert area, not getting a great deal of rainfall at all at any time during the year, so if there isn't much snow, there isn't much water to go around. With Colorado's incredible growth rate of the past 10 years or so, snowfall is more and more critical. Denver residents seem to love it, even with all the mess it causes here. Of course, most folks around here ski (at least, the ones I've met), so that's to be expected. I just can't get into that, though. Days like this make me think I would be happier to never see another flake of snow.