Lake-Effect Ugh

It is Christmas day and it is snowing–hard. I am very glad to not be driving in this crud.

I am watching TV and the Weather Channel is talking about the ever-dreaded lake-effect snow and showing a picture of… Massachusetts! Are you kidding me? They kept talking about New England and showing New York. New York does make some sense because it borders Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Syracuse and Buffalo are the focus.

Meanwhile, in my world, Lansing, Michigan, the snow is coming down probably an inch an hour. The radar is typical for this kind of system. Frigid air sweeps across Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is 5 degrees and sunny in Milwaukee. The same air traipses across Lake Michigan and dumps snow across the lower peninsula, starting in Holland and Muskegon and coming as far east as Lansing sometimes, like today. It will be warmer here than the other side of the lake. It might be fifteen degrees here. Meanwhile, the Weather Channel doesn’t even give our state an actual name. They refer to our region as “the Great Lakes.” When Canadian air sweeps across the Great Lakes,  it doesn’t just snow in Buffalo and Cleveland! Just saying. We don’t gt the press because crappy weather is not noteworthy. It’s snowing in Michigan in December. So? And your point is…? Yawn.

Meanwhile, I am trying to accomplish something. I am working on an Excel file to show my student. I have found another type of chart she might prefer to the bell curve. It’s called a histogram. For the smaller job codes, a graph is silly, but the vaster job codes could use a histogram. I am trying to get things done before it is hot and oppressively humid, which is the flip-side of almost being an island. When it is hot, hazy, and humid, I don’t want to do anything at all. So this is my opportunity.

The upside is a white Christmas. The downside is a white MLK day, a white groundhog day, a white Valentine’s day, and sometimes a white St. Patty’s day. Ugh. On my mark, get set, go.