Child me tended not to group winter storms with other geological disasters because, to me, nothing about its appearance was immediately hazardous. When an extra foot or two of snow hit my hometown, usually once or twice a year, the only worry I had ever felt was about how long it would take to snowblow the driveway. Otherwise, I just added an extra layer of clothing and enjoyed the day off of school. I enjoyed being able to trek around the woods near my house and look at the trees coated in snow, like a pale, quiet wonderland.
Even now, I still hold a bit of that naivete from when I was younger. When I asked my dad about his memories of snowstorms past, he commented about how they were “stressful due to worrying about [the] heat going out and [the] safety of the family.” While he gave me a riveting contribution (this was all I could squeeze out of him after 20 minutes of conversation), his thoughts don’t reflect my own. He isn’t wrong, of course: all types of snowfall carry a danger not in how grandiose they are but in their ability to silently overwhelm us. A blanket of snow means that any utility- water, power, heat- can fail at a moment’s notice, and being prepared for the worst is essential.
That said, I figured a half-hearted attempt at a quote and the quiet of waiting at home for a power outage doesn’t make for an interesting story. So, instead, I’ve decided I’ll recount the time I nearly crashed my car during a blizzard. I’ve refrained from referring to snowstorms in general as blizzards because, technically, they are different things. Blizzards exist as a subcategory of winter storms, which Wisconsin’s weather services categorize as a winter storm that:
Contains wind gusts that reach 35 miles per hour or higher
Reduces visibility to ¼ of a mile or less, and
Lasts for three or more hours
On the day of my near-miss, the storm checked all of these boxes before I left for school that day. State guidelines recommend avoiding travel during these circumstances, but my hometown is not known for being particularly weather-avoidant. Call it bravery or stupidity, but commuters were still on their way to Milwaukee for work, and the cars cruising through the fresh snow lowered the visibility from about 1,000 feet to 10 to 15 feet. Taking the highway in these conditions was a don’t-try-this-at-home scenario, but neither of us was a morning person, so we were already running late.
The funny thing about reduced visibility is that the more cars choose to drive, the less likely they are to go at anything above 30 miles an hour. The other funny thing is that if you can’t see much farther than the two cars immediately in front of you, you won’t know when more cars enter the highway until those cars’ brake lights go on. That gave me roughly 10 seconds to slam on the brakes to prevent a collision at 7:30 in the morning. However, the fresh snow meant that my car’s tires weren’t gripping onto anything of significance. Instead, the heavy winds grabbed it, guiding me off the highway and into the median. Vaguely panicking while not fully processing what was happening, I attempted to swerve back onto the road with a good 70% of my car off the road. Luckily, we had gotten significant snowfall for the past few weeks, and the median, which normally looked like a divot, had filled with snow, meaning my car wasn’t a lost cause the moment I left the pavement. I managed to swerve back onto the road just as an overpass's pillar came into view, and I continued onwards past it.
The typical outcome of stories like mine, experienced by a driver near Glendale, Wisconsin
Andrew, what an informative and interesting post! I never knew the exact criteria for a winter storm, so including that was very helpful in understanding the full scope of your story! Recounting your experience and the danger you faced when driving in the snow is a nice reminder for your audience to be careful and attentive behind the wheel. Thanks for sharing!
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