According to the calendar the solstice is two weeks away, but winter is no respecter of calendars and blew in here unannounced the week before Thanksgiving. Within two days, frigid temperatures, heavy rain and wind had knocked the last of the autumn color out of the trees leaving the woods bare and gray.
Yesterday sleet and freezing rain fell most of the day. The weatherman on TV says winter storm Dion is responsible. Winter storms didn't used to have names, but we like something to blame for our difficulties, and having a name makes it easier. Now we have Boreas and Cleon and Dion to talk about; in the past all we had was "bad weather."
The man on TV said that winter storm Dion visited 46 states. Imagine that. Can the same Dion that dumped snow in the Rockies be sleeting in my backyard here in Virginia?
It makes sense to me that hurricanes have names. We watch them being born off the coast of Africa. We plot their course across the ocean. Hurricanes have a recognizable shape on the weather map; they have an eye. Hurricanes make a bold frontal assault on some unlucky coastal city and then sweep along northward on their way to die in the north Atlantic. That such a phenomenon should have a name is fitting.
Winter storms that dawdle about in 46 of the 50 states and look like a mildew stain on the weather map don't deserve to have a name. They're nothing but bad weather.
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