I’m snow-shocked.

When I first found out I was moving to NYC, I got a lot of concerned looks from my friends and family about my ability to handle the winter. As a Southerner, I’d known nothing other than year-round warm weather with the occasional cold snap, much less snow. Still, I bought a huge coat and thrifted some boots, thinking, it couldn’t be that bad.

After spending my winter break tanning at the beach, I was pretty shocked to return to a snow-covered campus. I’ve experienced more snow in the past month than in my entire life, not to mention all of the delayed childhood snow day experiences I am finally having at the ripe age of 19. Laugh at my naïveté if you want, but here’s what the snow has taught me (and what I wish someone actually told me before moving here). 

  1. It gets so dirty

Perhaps this is city-specific, but aside from the immediate wondrous snowfall, snow is filthy 99% of the time. I was shocked by how quickly it gets covered in dirt, litter, and general NYC grime once people start messing with it. Any media that takes place in winter neglects to show the day after the magical blizzard once everything is brown and slushy — for the sake of Southerners like me, please do better.

  1. It melts into puddles everywhere

I didn’t realize that once the snow melts, it (and all its contents — ew) pools into the curb cuts and any crevices on the sidewalk. Due to the city’s unfortunate lack of drainage, I have to leap across a sewage-colored puddle anytime I want to cross the street, turning my life into a game of “the floor is lava”. It also means that if you judge the jump wrong, your feet get nice and damp — fun!

  1. It’s really wet

If, like me, your only experience with “snow” is the fake powdery kind they use at community events during the holidays, you’d be surprised that the real thing is incredibly wet. During the first snowfall in January, I was shocked when my gloves were immediately soaked after making snowballs. Luckily, this isn’t an isolated event — the snow promptly melts into a watery slush after being walked on by 10,000 college students. Suffice it to say waterproof gloves are now on my wishlist. 

Snow-covered Low via Bwarchives