First Frost

Photo (c) the Christian Science Monitor.

Halloween weekend and the Northeast saw its first snow of the season. New York City experienced record snowfall (around eight inches), which was accompanied by formidable gusts of wind and temperatures which dropped twenty to thirty degrees overnight. Hundreds of trees succumbed to the mounting weight of the snow, slush, and ice, causing particular trouble for the city's public parks, which all closed in order to prevent any unnecessary accidents.

Also, according to the New York Daily News, "more than 2.2 million (Con Ed) customers lost power form Maryland to Massachusetts." This was a storm reminiscent of those I'd experienced throughout my childhood in Ohio, full of rage and beauty and surprise - the kind that kept me up at night to watch the powder pile upon itself in steady increments and wonder how it would feel to scoop up a handful at dawn and, gloveless, shove the frozen heap into my mouth. These are the kinds of storms that Midwesterners come to live for.