Standing Ready

Predicting Colorado weather has to be the most thankless job around.

If you’ve lived here for any length of time, you know what I mean. Whether it comes from the mountains meeting the plains, or some weird cosmic vibrations out of Boulder, or just the cumulative atmospheric effects of too many disappointing Rockies baseball seasons, Colorado weather is weird.

This is where the Four Seasons isn’t a hotel, it’s a 24-hour period. Where the morning’s T-shirt may turn into the afternoon’s parka. Where a school-closing storm can be followed by a perfect day to walk the dog.

Given that, is it any wonder that we get a little cynical at proclamations of snowy doom?

By the time this appears in print, we’ll know for sure whether the latest Snow My Goodness really was the storm of ages or just the usual shoveling and muttering of Colorado’s annual welcome to spring. This region has had some epic snows and everyone has their favorite to talk about:  the Christmas Blizzard of ’82; the roof-busters of 2003; the 2006 storms that piled on like a network TV show, claiming a regular Thursday slot. But we’ve also seen enough doom-and-disaster prophecies go bust to reflexively roll our eyes anytime a TV personality uses the words “Snowmageddon” or “Snowpocalypse.”

But here’s the thing. For all the sarcasm – we still prepare. We may not believe, but we prepare.

Why? Because the potential cost of not doing it is just too darned high.

We’ve learned that from tornado warnings: head to the basement, because even if the last 12 ended harmlessly, there’s no guarantee on the 13th.  

We’ve learned that from wildfires and floods: get out quick when the warning comes, because the longer you linger, the harder it becomes to leave.

And over this last year, a lot of us have learned that again and again from the pandemic.

By now, most of us can recite it like a mantra. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Keep at least six feet away. And when something slips, like a party on the Hill or a burst of Memorial Day impatience,  we see the curves rise and get a fresh reminder of why it’s important.

It’s been tedious, even for the dedicated introverts among us. Constant vigilance is tiring and there’s always the temptation to say “Forget it, I’ll be OK just this once.”

But we know better. As the old adage goes, it’s better to prepare without need than to need and not prepare.

So we do what we need to do. For ourselves. For our neighbors. For our community.

Sometimes the predicted danger melts away like a seventh-inning chance at Coors Field, and we share a laugh at the hype (and maybe a quiet sigh of relief). But when the preparation and endurance pay off – that’s when we come out the other end with gratitude and another story to tell.

So whether today’s landscape looks like a typical Longmont March or a remake of “Nanook of the North,”  thank you for being ready. For yesterday’s warning. For tomorrow’s. And especially for the ongoing one that we’re finally starting to push back as hope rises and the shots roll out.

That’s how we make it through. Not panicking, but not foolhardy either. Eventually, that caution and care will bring us out the other side and we can return to a slightly less stressful existence.

Well … everyone except the weather forecasters, anyway.

There’s Snow Season Like Spring

When March comes, some places get songbirds.

Some get the first hints of green and an early flower or two.

Some blessed spots even get the sounds of baseball – a refrain growing since dismal, bleak February – and a promise that The Season with its infinite possibilities will soon arrive.

And then there’s Longmont. We get Paul Revere of the Yukon, on every channel.

“The blizzards are coming! The blizzards are coming!”

It’s not that they’re always wrong. It might be easier if they were. But we know that March is Longmont’s snowiest month. We know that sudden snowfalls and paralyzing drifts can happen. We know that entire weekends, even entire weeks, can be set to the drone of the snow blower and the groan of the snow shoveler.

And so, we prepare. Maybe with a cynical chuckle and a roll of the eyes, but we prepare. And when the snowstorm turns out to be staggeringly ordinary or even non-existent, we nod, and sigh, and say “Those forecasters.”

Because we know the times that we don’t prepare, the times that we decide it’s all bunk, maybe even the times that the forecasters themselves don’t take it seriously – that will be when Suzie Snowflake holds a debutante ball over half the Front Range.

And now we know what it means to be as mad as a March Hare. The dang rabbit has gone insane from trying to make weekend driving plans.

But it’s not without benefit. Each year, we learn a very particular set of skills (with apologies to Liam Neeson). We learn to stay on the alert without staying paralyzed. To weigh possibilities and gauge best-case and worst-case scenarios. And when the need arises, we learn how to buckle down, do the job, and watch out for our neighbor.

In short, we learn one of the most relevant skill sets there is these days.

We have a lot of things claiming to be emergencies these days. Some truly are urgent. Some are important, but magnified and distorted. And some … some exist strictly in the mind of the proclaimer, exuding an accuracy and trustworthiness that make Chicken Little and The Boy Who Cried Wolf look like Willard Scott.

That’s where we need to listen with a mind trained by March.

No one can respond to all the alarm bells. No one can ignore every one either. And so, if we’re smart, we greet them with a mix of wariness and preparation. What do the facts say, not just the images? What’s the cost of acting? Of not acting? What’s the smart action, not just the popular one?

It’s not easy. It means reining in instincts that go back to the Stone Age, urging us to move into action at the slightest hint of danger. But it also means that we don’t live half-ready to spring, with a tension that seeps into everything we do. Perspective doesn’t just dial up preparation, it dials down stress.

And when that happens, we’re not just ready to help ourselves and our community. We’re ready to find joy in it.

Yes, a sudden snowstorm requires work and caution (PLEASE be careful on the roads!), and assistance to others. It also transforms expectations, turning a world we’ve seen a  thousand times into something new. Even beautiful. It muffles, forcing us to pause in our regular lives, to draw inward for a bit and contemplate.

And around here,  it remains the truest sign we have that spring is just around the corner.  At least until we hear the crack of the bat and the promise that this year, the Rockies are going to win it all.

Whether that’s a true forecast, or just one more snow job, I leave up to you.