STORY BY TIM WEBBER
Humor me for just a second. Please pick up your phone, open your weather app of choice, and look at the 10-day extended forecast. In particular, look at the forecasted high temperatures — and let out a huge, exuberant, joyful shout.
Somehow, we made it through the winter. It’s over. (At least, it’s over for now. Winter has a funny habit of trying to come back in April and May).
This winter felt pretty bad, because all winters generally feel miserable, unless you’re one of those people who actually enjoys frostbite and likes feeling chilled to the bone.
But as it turns out, this Iowa winter was not bad at all. Since we’ve returned to Drake for spring semester, the vast majority of snowfall has come from just one snowstorm. Beyond that, the winter has been mostly dry.
Compare that to Boston, which has endured around one thousand snowstorms in the past month, and Des Moines is essentially Florida.
February did end up being a little colder than normal, but according to the National Weather Service, the winter ended up milder than last year and right around the average for Iowa.
What does this mean? We had this winter better off than most other places in the United States.
If you follow any mainstream news networks, especially those based on the East Coast, you probably heard about Boston, New York or another major eastern city getting pounded with a blizzard every other week. Boston had multiple feet of snow dropped on it within 24 hours multiple times this weekend. Feet. Not inches. Feet.
The South didn’t fare much better, getting multiple inches of snow that they weren’t prepared for, resulting in widespread accidents and states of emergency.
Perhaps worst of all, the Weather Channel continued its practice of giving patently ridiculous names to winter storms, and some news networks actually gave in and used them as well. This led to meteorologists describing the incredible destruction brought about by “Winter Storm Juno” or “Winter Storm Quantum” with a straight face.
But none of this happened in Des Moines. For that, we can be thankful.