Winter Comes to the Valley

According to the electronic thermometer hanging on my wall, it's 17.2 degrees fahrenheit outside right now. That, my friends, is cold. That's almost as cold as it is in Fargo, ND (16 degrees), colder than Billings, MT (22 degrees), and much colder than Oslo, Norway (where it's 32 degrees right now, in the middle of the night). Snow is forecast for tomorrow, rain the next day, then more snow on Thursday. Winter, it seems, has arrived.

New Englanders love to complain about winter. In fact, complaining about winter is something of a regional pastime, like rodeos out west or Civil War reenactments down south. You can usually tell how long a person has lived in New England by the scale and complexity of their complaints: newcomers will focus primarily on the cold temperatures and abundant snowfall, but natives (especially older natives) can spend hours dwelling on the travails of shoveling the walk, the astronomical cost of heating oil, the iniquities of the municipal snowplowing regime, the dangers of falling icicles, which roads to avoid and which to stick to, and memories of winters and blizzards past. As in any society subject to extreme changes in the weather New Englanders have devised a number of folk methods to predict when the bad weather will arrive. It's said that a light-colored breastbone in the Thanksgiving turkey indicates a mild winter ahead, whereas a purple or blue one portends snow and bitter cold. A warm Christmas supposedly means a cold Easter. If a month starts out warm, it is sure to end cold. And if your pigs start squealing, get ready for a blizzard.

Most of this, of course, is pure hogwash (pardon the pun), but it's a fair measure of how seriously winter has shaped the patterns of life here. Yet New England winters are hardly the worst in the country: the upper midwest stays much colder for much longer, and areas around the Great Lakes get much more snow. Moreover, the winters in New England have been getting much milder lately - average winter temperatures have risen about 2.5 degrees in the last 40 years, and this is having serious negative consequences for local industries such as ski resorts and maple sugaring. I can remember watching in amazement two Januarys ago when an extended stretch of warm weather caused the trees to bud outside my Somerville apartment while confused birds hopped around chirping and blinking in the sunlight. Rivers and lakes are staying frozen for shorter periods or (like the Charles in Boston) failing to freeze at all.

Most natives I know delight in these warmer winters, but I don't. Maybe it's because I prefer being cold to being hot - you can always get more bundled up, after all, but you can only get so naked, and anyway my internal thermostat is set somewhat higher than most. Maybe it's because, as a non-native, I'm still charmed by the novelty of waist-high snowfalls and single-digit temperatures, as I am by the beauty of a snow-blanketed meadow or glistening forest. The shortness of the daylight hours and the sludgy grossness of a city several days after it snows are depressing, it's true, but this can be slightly offset by a warm, cozy room and a piping mug of cocoa or mulled wine. I suppose it also helps that, this year at least, I'm not paying for my heat, so I can keep The Submarine as cozy as I like and only feel slightly guilty about it.

But mostly I like New England winters to be cold because that's the way they're supposed to be. This is not some hidebound traditionalism on my part, nor is it abject sentimentality - it's simply a function of my deep unease about what we're doing to the climate. I know this is going to open me up to all sorts of ridicule from my New England readers, but seriously, folks, how can we enjoy a 60-degree February day when we know what it means for the polar ice caps, ocean currents, sea levels, or worldwide rainfall patterns, all of which threaten the livelihoods (and lives) of billions of people? Not concerned about people? Then go watch March of the Penguins or some clips of Knut the Polar Bear or that saxaphone-playing walrus they've got over in Istanbul. Seriously, these things are frigging cute. Surely a slight twinge of guilt is in order under the circumstances?

None of this means that I won't indulge in the great New England sport of winter-bitching in the months to come, but it does mean that, when I do so, my heart won't really be in it. In fact, if we break any snowfall or temperature records this winter, I will probably rejoice a little bit - but quietly, so as not to spoil the fun for my neighbors.