A Snow Event

We’re preparing for a winter snow storm at our house. The meteorologists are calling for a snow event of monumental proportion tonight.  That’s an alarming 4 to 7 inches in Atlanta.  Lest you scoff, the greatest snowfall ever recorded in Atlanta was just 8.31 inches which  fell on January  23, 1940.  Also of note, six inches of snow fell on January 30, 1936; about 8 inches fell on March 24, 1983;  and five inches fell on January 18, 1992.

In my snow memory bank (pun intended), two events stand out.

Snow blankets our front yard in the Super Storm of 1993.

The first occurred the weekend  before our daughter's birth -- the Super Storm of '93.  Amid snow, ice and wind, we lost power and were forced to sleep on a mattress we'd dragged in front of our gas-log fireplace. Sounds fun, right?  Perhaps, unless you're eight and a half months pregnant and on doctor ordered bed rest.  We managed to make the best of it though  and our baby girl was born on a cool, sunny day just 2 days later.

My husband with our St. Patrick's Day baby.

Flash forward three and half years.  There was no snow the day our son was born. But 48 hours later, just as we were  released from the hospital, the biggest, whitest flakes of snow began to fall.  The tiny dressing gown he wore home from the hospital had little blue snowflakes embroidered on the collar.  It was perfect -- just like him.

In his "snow" outfit, wrapped in a blanket knitted by my grandmother.

So while it  doesn't snow often in Atlanta, when it does, it's often remarkable.