On March 1, 2007, my samurai and I officially uprooted ourselves from the native Californian sun and moved to...Maryland.
Fundamental difference:
March in Northern California means 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit, with bits of green just ready to herald the beginning of spring.
March in Maryland means 20-40 degrees Fahrenheit (for that year) and small bleak piles of snow, with not a single green thing in sight.
About a week into living in our new state, I remember walking out and encountering this...stuff, falling from the sky. Holding my hand out in naive fascination, the mental convo that went on in my head was something like, "Ye GODS! What is this?!" as I was trying to figure it out, tasting...touching....rubbing this odd white stuff between my fingers. "Not snow. This stuff is too wet for snow. Snow is dry! Not rain. Definitely not rain. And...." adding as I almost biffed it on the sidewalk, "slippery. Slushy."
Adjectives were flying through my head as my brain struggled to comprehend this snow-not snow-slush-rain hybrid. It wasn't until I was sliding, literally sliding at 20 mph on an on ramp when I discovered two more things:
1. This stuff is what they called...SLEET!
and
2. Holy CRAP! I'm driving too fast!
Yes. It was an interesting spring in 2007. The 2007 winter later that year was even more "educational" as I slogged and shivered my way through such vocabulary as "wintery mix," "flurries," and "frozen rain." Frozen rain has special meaning to me since the day I walked out to my car from work at 5 pm, and found it encased in ICE. As I chipped my way to opening the door, the naive former Californian that I was turned on the windshield wipers, hit the wiper fluid, and waited for almost 10 uneventful minutes in my frozen tomb before one of my co-workers noticed my plight. If it hadn't been for him, I think I would've been there all night until the sun maybe had thawed me out in the morning!
Needless to say, between my first winter experience and Weather.com, I've learned that you should keep a bag of salt or kitty litter in your trunk along with a shovel and ice scraper (preferrably heated). These things are also handy in case you ever encounter a wild pack of mutant sabre tooth tigers with a bad case of diarrhea and dingleberries.
When your car is a frozen ice cube, use the ice scraper while on high defrost. Scrape, scrape, scrape as the hot blast of air warms up your windshield. You can even buy stuff that has a salt component in it that you sprinkle onto your windshield to thaw it out somewhat.
When driving:
1. Don't drive in bad weather. Of course, if you've been at work for 12 hours or so... this may be something you will probably have to do for fear of going postal. Sleeping in cubicles is not fun.
If you MUST drive in bad weather (like a lot of us do), and in ice/sleet/frozen rain:
2. Drive SLOWLY. -sometimes this means 2 mph in Maryland and will take you 2 hours to get home instead of 30 minutes.
3. Leave at LEAST 3 times the more space than usual between you and the car in front of you.
4. Don't pass the snow plow or salt trucks! The conditions in front of THEM are worse than whats behind them.
5. Brake slowly.... VERY slowly - especially on bridges, since the likelyhood of ice is even higher. You can skid very easily on the ice.
6. This one's a no brainer hopefully, but I've encountered people with no brains so: Turn on your lights!
7. Lastly, when you park, put your wipers up so that they don't stick and freeze to the windshield.
Then heaven forbid, but if you get stuck, the trusty people at Weather.com say:
- Do not spin your wheels. This will only dig you in deeper.
- Turn your wheels from side to side a few times to push snow out of the way.
- Use a light touch on the gas, to ease your car out.
- Use a shovel to clear snow away from the wheels and the underside of the car.
- Pour sand, kitty litter, gravel or salt in the path of the wheels, to help get traction.
- Try rocking the vehicle. (Check your owner's manual first — it can damage the transmission on some vehicles.) Shift from forward to reverse, and back again. Each time you're in gear, give a light touch on the gas until the vehicle gets going.
- MORE TIPS
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