I guess it was too good to last. Whatever weather sanctuary has been protecting the greater Kashima area for the past couple of weeks finally buckled under the pressure.
The weather experts said that this would probably turn out to be the warmest winter on record. Naturally, the country immediately saw one of the worst cold snaps in history, with record snowfalls being dumped all over the country.
Everywhere except here. In the wonderful Kanto Plain we've only had days and days of beautiful, sunny, dry weather. COLD AS HELL, but dry.
Sometime during the night the Mr. Spock up in the sky above us (okay...Cmdr. Data for those of you that never got into ST:TOS) must have said, "Deflector shields are gone, captain," because I got up to go to work this morning, opened the curtains, and was greeted with a world of white. There wasn't that much snow; maybe a couple of centimeters (0.7874 inches) at best. However, since it was buckets-frozen-solid cold outside, the little bit of melt caused by the morning sun quickly turned into a nice, shiny, slick pavement of ice on the street.
No, driving on it wasn't fun.
Fortunately, once I creeped my way out to the main road, the worst was over. Traffic had long since cleared the lanes of ice. However, cars were still spinning in off the side streets, and traffic was slowed to a standstill by frequent accidents. Once I got into Kashima, pulled off the main route, and wound my way around the hills leading to the academy, I found snow and ice again. Going up one steep incline, my traction broke free, and my wheels were spinning like crazy (and my car threatening to rotate) as I fortunately somehow managed to keep moving uphill and over the top. Even though I'd left nice and early, I wound up rolling in to the school more than half an hour late.
It was a good thing that entrance exams were yesterday (as yesterday's post described...if I ever get around to writing it...). Being tardy today wasn't such a disaster. A lot of other teachers didn't show up at all. Today was spent marking test papers. As we did so, we could see that it was snowing again outside. Hard. The sky overhead was black, and the air all around was like a thick fog of snowflakes. As it turned out, my group finished really quickly, so I just took care of a few odds and ends in the music office. Then I decided to make the trip home early so I wouldn't have to face the dangers in the dark.
It was no longer snowing when I left. In fact, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. There was still snow and ice in the campus, especially in the teachers' parking lot. Once I crawled my way out of there, however, I found that the rest of the world had long since thawed out. The sun was blazing, and the streets of Kashima were bone dry. Not a speck of white to be seen anywhere. It was normal driving all the way home.
Now I'm sorry I didn't bring a camera with me this morning instead of popping off in a panicked huff. We actually had winter snow this year. It didn't last even half a day, but it was a harrowing half a day! I guess Old Man Winter paid his courtesy call.
STAY WARM AND HEALTHY, EVERYONE!
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