The Great Alabama Snowpocalypse of 2015

I hesitate to call this a Snowpocalypse, partly because it was nowhere near as "great" as last year's Snowpocalypse and partly because... well, you never know! We might end up getting more snow this year.

My adventure in the snow this year has a bit of a complicated story.

I think most of the state of Alabama was expecting at least a wintry mix, although the northern parts of the state were calling for the most snow. I'm a student at the University of Alabama, which is in Central Alabama, but I had to go home to Northern Alabama for a dentist appointment on the day of the Snowpocalypse.

Before I knew there was going to be snow, my plan was to take my morning class, drive two and a half hours home and attend my dentist appointment, eat some lunch, drive two and a half hours back to school and take my evening class. It didn't work out that way, and I'm kind of glad, because that would've been a lot of driving. (My mom called me a wimp for saying that, but I've also done the 14+ hour trip between Madison, Alabama and Richmond, Virginia in one day by myself, so I beg to differ).

The day before my dentist appointment, the entire state began to panic. The governor declared a state of emergency. After a few hours of mental begging and pleading, I got the magical email from the University saying that classes the next day would be cancelled. Freed from the obligation to attend my 8 A.M. class the next day, I hopped in the car and drove home, where I planned to spend the evening so that I wouldn't have to drive home through the snow the next day.

The general panic continued the next day. My 12 noon dentist appointment got bumped back to 9 A.M. The local schools had called a snow day. Everybody bunkered down with their eggs, milk, and bread. Ironically, the snow didn't actually start until roughly mid-afternoon.

But it was a decent snowfall! I think we got seven or eight inches. Meanwhile, back at school, my classmates were staring up at the sky, willing some kind of frozen precipitation to arrive. They eventually got a little snow, but it didn't stick around very long.

I watched the fat, fluffy flakes tumble from the sky from the comfort of my parents' kitchen. Once some accumulation had built up, I bundled up, ran to the garage, and grabbed my sled-- a souvenir of when we lived in places that receive snow regularly.

I was a bit out of practice and a bit out of shape, but the hill in my backyard was great for sledding once I smoothed and compacted the snow a bit! I had multiple sledding paths going by the end of the evening. I went all the way down to the creek bed at the bottom, and unfortunately, the water was not frozen. But I heaped snow on top of it to make it just solid enough to lengthen my sled path. It was seriously a lot of fun. I don't remember the last time I'd been sledding.

Photos courtesy of Mary Mast

Snow War

You might recall a few very depressed blog posts about the week or so when it wouldn't stop raining. For the first few days, the rain was tolerable. But then it got colder and colder and everyone was miserable.

And then it got so cold that the rain turned to snow.

I live in the Deep South- we're lucky if we get one good snowfall a year. Everyone on campus was excited about the fat, fluffy flakes that were falling to the ground and actually sticking. Of course, the Powers That Be waited to cancel classes until mid-afternoon when the snow had stopped falling anyway, but at least we got to walk to our classes through a winter wonderland.

I was unaware of this at the time because I was in French class, but a battle of epic proportions went down on the quad that day. Students came from all corners of campus and flung snowballs at each other. They hit their friends. They hit strangers. They hit random passersby. They probably hit their professors, too. Anybody on campus was a target. At least one football player was hit by a snowball. The battle spilled out onto other areas of campus, turning the school grounds into a battlefield.

Like I said, I missed out on the campus-wide snow war. I was in French. When I finally got out of class, the snow had just about stopped and was even beginning to melt. I ran back to my dorm to change into some warmer clothes and then I set out for a nice, long walk around campus, determined to enjoy the snowy landscape while I could. I walked up the sidewalk toward the center of campus, feeling happy to be alive.

WHUMP!

A snowball came flying out of nowhere and crashed into the sidewalk at my feet. I froze mid-step, looking around wildly to see who had thrown a snowball at me. I didn't see anybody I knew, just a bunch of strangers walking by and smirking. I laughed it off and walked on as if I had not a care in the world. But I was actually very confused.