As if this onrush of wind and sleet and auto accident could easily be studied. As if it could be tracked by screens by light on screens and telemetric shadow from above. As if we can understand it. As if we can predict it. Because prediction is the goal--a sad runner-up to aversion of its coming. Because at least we can have warning. Because we can tell or know to go inside. Because it offers subjects for discussion. Because the big one in 1979 brought down the barn. Because it topped the record book. Because it was the biggest number. Because numbers are one way of understanding weather. Because we can measure something means we can identify and track it. Can this storm be discrete. Can we get to your aunt’s in time. Can we analyze its conceptual model to be more accurately predictive in the future. Can you handle all the ice sheeting on the roads. Can we keep it outside of us, outside of the car, the house, the driveway, the life. Can we shovel it all off or melt it all away. Can we classify it away. Did your mother avoid disaster? Did she get inside in time, or is she out in it, her tongue protruding hot and wet and letting snowflakes hurl themselves into her jaw? Did she get the neighbor boy to shovel off her roof last week or should she expect ice to come down from above. Expect the worst. Expect to have to go out in it. Expect that you can’t stay inside forever. Forecasting accuracy. Forecasting for aviation with colored graphics. Forecasting the movement of fronts that bring freezing rain down upon us like a punishment from God. God’s anger sheets everything in glass and brittleness, like information and the state of your marriage. How shoveling in the winter glare and falling is pleasure-labor, a way of making measurable progress. If all this freezing rain is justified retribution, why does it leave such loveliness behind--everything quiet and tinkling in the remaining winds. If all this is preamble to apocalypse, that explains the creaking limbs, the ice age rehearsal. If all this global warming is coming to an end, should we expect less snow or more next year? If the storms move past us in through the night, will schools open up tomorrow, or will the gusting and the winds be strong enough to keep the kids still home and hot with chocolate and repetitious games of Connect Four. Just let it pass to keep them home. Just let the temperature crest into the teens tomorrow morning so we can drop the kids at school, so we can stay home from work and enjoy ourselves. Just let us get on skis and go cross-country, rifles strapped across our backs in case of ambush or biathalon. Keep us warm and safe indoors, double-glass storm windows with extra insulation and the plastic wrap stretched tight across it. Keep us up late enough to put the kids to bed and watch the snow accumulate as we predict how much will fall tonight. Keep us up so we can work on our marriage. Keep us off our feet to let the recently-broken bones knit and stitch themselves together while we sleep. LAPS precipitation graphic, created from radar reflectivity and 3-D temperature, downloaded from the Internet for use in a later report. Major snowstorms we have known. Major snowstorms we have weathered. Major snowstorms classified as blizzards due to velocity of wind. Major U.S. catastrophes, 1950-1994, classified by type and strength of storm. Major U.S. catastrophes, future and unclassified. Never be too prepared. Never respond to frostbite by immersing the affected limb in hot water (use cold, then lukewarm). Never going outside is one method of dealing with the erratic weather. Never leave bread crumbs as a marker for your trail. Or, never tell your wife what you did when you were young. Or, further, never do what you tell your wife you’ll never do. Path you left through the snow at her aunt’s house after you shoveled through the night. Path of your departure from and return to your marriage. Paths of ETCs during June 1993 over the U.S. Paths of snowstorms tracking over the body of Upper Michigan. Paths of cars slid off the roads into the snowbank are easy to find for the first hour of the storm. Pathways through the storm aren’t so hard to find. Quiet, now, just listen to the coming down. Quietnesses alone or with your family are of different qualities. Quietly down the stairs during the night to finish off the tortellini in the fridge. Roof failure in Hurricane Andrew left the precast walls unsupported and they failed along the internal floor slab line. Roof failure in the barn collapse during the big winter of 1979 coincided with your mother’s death and left a mark. Roof failure is the worst betrayal of the safety pact that your building of the house against the storm outside secured. Schematic of one possible cause for wind shifts occurring ahead of temperature changes in cold frontal passages. Schematic diagram showing the manner through which heavy snowfall can be produced from low pressure systems tracking southeasterly along the coast. Schematic diagram illustrating the overall flow fields within and the organization of spring snowstorms in the lee of the Rocky Mountains. Schematic diagram illustrating the large-scale 100-50 kPa thickness patterns associated with ice pellet/snowstorms as opposed to freezing rain storms. Schematic of the storm structure during the St. Valentine’s Day storm in New York. The insurance industry. The insurance industry and its methods for combating fraud. The insurance premiums go up each year as you move closer to potential death. The life insurance that you doubled on yourself and on your wife a year ago weighs heavily on your mind. Underneath the policy you wonder what life insurance means in all its morbidity. Underneath the snow caking on the roof, it’s warm inside thanks to fire and no lack of love in spite of all your marriage’s faults and the fault lines that mark it from the inside. Underneath it all you both have your secrets and you keep them close to your hearts like children. Vulnerability, yours, to winter storms. Vulnerability to unexpected changes such as death, dismemberment, or crippling emotional failure. Vulnerability to sudden shifts in air pressure. Vulnerability, analysis of, necessary analysis of love. Vulnerability of the community to winter weather shutdown of the town. Vulnerability, field assessments. Warnings of your vulnerability to all these things, and insurance against potential collapse. Warnings of winter storms. Warnings of extension of the season. Warning against eating the rest of the tortellini in the fridge during the night, expressed in verse on note attached to the Tupperware. Warnings, generally ignored. Warnings, ignored, resulting in loss of fingertips due to accidents or exposure to fire or cold. Warnings, broadcast, emergency tones. Warnings, social aspects. Warnings of the breakdown of threat management. Warnings, winter storm. Exothermic reactions in blizzards, of fronts colliding with each other, sometimes resulting in lightning. Ex-wife potential--a depressing thought and one unfair to her since the rift was not her fault but yours. Your fault, your family. Your lack of forethought. Your end and emptiness. Your cold and brittle fingers. Your trees outside--the ones you planted--stiff with sheaths of ice and soon to break. Zero, time to blizzard and other forms of necessary impact.

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