If you listened to the news yesterday, you’d think New England was getting ready for The Big One or something. Blizzard Warning! Winter Storm Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!!. (Well, maybe not the last one). And then you listen to the forecast, and you realize, for most of the area… it’s not a big deal. (I will grant that on the South Shore, it was a medium big deal).

First off, we knew yesterday that the snow was going to be light and fluffy. I’ll take a foot of fluff over six inches of heavy stuff any day. Second, for most areas, the forecast was 6-10 inches. Around here, six inches of snow is not a big deal. This is not the South. We have plows and snowblowers and shovels and know how to use them. Here, we wound up with 10 inches of fluff, and even that wasn’t a hard to get rid of.

This is New England. This storm was not a disaster. It was a nuisance, and I wish the media would learn to distinguish between nuisance storms and more serious ones.

I did take the train to work yesterday, but this morning I drove, because there’s no train between 7:40 and 10:16. Route I-95 was mostly clear, but somewhat slush covered. Gary LaPierre once stated that “Snow causes brain damage,” but driving in the snow isn’t really all that hard:

• Keep the speed down
• Maintain a lot of space between you and other cars if you can. Don’t tailgate, and don’t let others tailgate you.
• Avoid sudden movements. Keep turns gentle and gradual if you can, and avoid hard braking.
• Avoid it if you can. If we’re expecting dirty weather, I’ll take the train if I can.

So I left an hour later than I normally do, and it took slightly longer than normal. No big deal. It’s only snow.