The weatherfolks said it was going to snow in Charleston. They said it would even stick. A once-in-a-generation event. I admit I didn’t believe them.
The storm wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 8 or 9 pm, but schools let out early so folks could prepare. Road crews were put on high alert. News reporters ran around to key locations to cover the horror live. One channel referred to it as an impending “bombing,” which struck me as both silly and in rather bad taste. They acted like the Apocalypse was on its way. Stock up on supplies!
Well, almost unbelievably, it happened: Last night, it snowed here at The Citadel.
Oh, not a big snow, certainly. Really more of a solid dusting by the standards I’m used to. But it was undeniably snow. The whole thing was quite surreal.
We were watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics and occasionally looking out a window to check out the progress of things. Not long after Georgia started to make its heavy-hearted way into the stadium, the doorbell rang. Startled the heck out of the dog. Turns out it was a few of my cadets, hoping I could come out for a snowball fight.
Being that I was hardly in a state for snow at the moment, I declined the immediate invitation but promised to head for the parade deck soon. There were, I was told, about a thousand cadets out there.
I think there may have been. It was gleeful chaos here at El Cid, with cadet companies running after one another in pitched snow-flinging combat. Here and there people stood for pictures in the side-blowing wet snow. In a few spots industrious cadets labored on creating snowmen. Great fun.
Here are some pictures from the evening, followed by some shots of this morning when we took my wee lad and wee lass into the snow.
Thanks for the pictures, Mike, oh ye of little faith. I’ll send you a couple of ours when Tom has polished them to his liking. It was the perfect snow here — three inches of fluff covering every tree and shrub, but melting rapidly by noon in the sunshine.
As for the term, bombing, that’s actually a meteorological term used by the pros to refer to a low pressure system that forms rapidly off the coast (exploding like a bomb), which usually dumps significant quantities of precipitation on adjacent land masses.
“Bombing” is legit, eh? Wow. I learn something new every day.
(Or at least every good day!)
Saw some of the Citadel's cadets at the Mardi Gras parades over the past few days.
I hope they were on their best behavior — though is anyone on good behavior at Mardi Gras?