So, where’s the snow already? Weather is always more personal than scientific

It will be December tomorrow and I can still see grass.
I can see curbs and I can see pavement.
I figured by this time of year, I’d be hip deep in the white stuff. Manistee’s way up in the North Woods and right on the lake, a prime location to get hit by winter storms and blizzards.
I thought I’d have broken out my winter boots and broken in my new scraper.
So, where’s the snow? I haven’t seen a bit of it yet. A little frost on the window doesn’t count.
When I was living in the Detroit area, my brother and I would head up to the Pere Marquette River, an hour south of Manistee, the day after Thanksgiving to fly fish for steelhead. The last couple years have been impressively cold with snow drifts big enough to cast shadows along the river. Ice would form on the line and in the guides of the rod, making the angling difficult. Trips to the pick-up truck to crank the heat and unthaw were frequent and necessary.
Now, with me living in prime steelhead country, my brother came up to fish the Big and Little Manistee Rivers this past Thanksgiving. There we were Saturday in about 50-degree weather, casting in the sunshine, coatless and wearing shades.
My gauge of past winter seasons is more personal than scientific, but isn’t how we experience weather always more personal?
It’s not so easy to dig up old weather records on the Almighty Web. The National Weather Service’s site is technical and filled with obscure meteorological concerns. Most things have to do with tomorrow’s forecast.
But I bet most of us don’t measure snow based on actual total inches counted for the annals of history.
Instead, it was the winter that the snow was all the way up to the eaves of the garage and you and friends or family members had to dig out.
My grandpa was from Arkansas, and he would talk about how the summer was so hot in the Depression-era South that he and his brother had to dip their bedsheets in water and sleep out on the screened-in porch nearly every night.
Our online poll this week (at www.manisteenews.com) asks, “When it comes to weather, this winter I hope that: 1) It doesn’t snow at all. 2) We get lots and lots of snow and cold weather. 3) I could go south the entire winter. 4) We just get a little snow and cold weather.
Well, I’m going with no. two.
I hope we get lots and lots of snow and cold weather. Sure it’s a pain to get around in and being cooped up indoors because it’s five degrees out and your snot would freeze if you did isn’t my idea of fun.
But this is Michigan and we’re a hearty bunch.
I grew up in Bay City in the late 70s and the early 80s, when there always seemed to be snow. There were snowmen to make and forts to build. It’s a wintery wonderful way to grow up.
And who doesn’t like to see a few inches on the ground Christmas morning.
While the rest of the country seems to have drifted to southern, more gentle climes in what they call the Sunbelt, I’ll take a character-building Rust Belt Michigan winter anytime.
So, bring on the snow already!
Just check back in March and we’ll see if I’m singing the same song.