After temperatures hovering around 60 earlier in the week, winter has refused to go quietly into that goodnight. Tuesday morning brought high winds, snow, and ice back to the city. The conditions were the worst I’ve ridden in so far — it rained the previous evening, then as the temperatures dropped, it began to snow. Thanks to winds in excess of 30mph, anything that was snow-covered or wet turned to verglas. Traffic was, expectedly, a complete mess. While Butler Street had been salted, there were still icy spots, and the thin strip between traffic and parked cars was a crapshoot of snow, slush, and ice. The usual 25 minute took almost 45 minutes, including a coffee/warm-up-my-hands stop at La Prima.

Today, the snow is gone, and the winds have calmed, but the air is still frigid. The streets, while dry, are covered with a confectioner’s sugar coating of pulverized road salt. It swirls up in clouds behind the cars and trucks, getting in your eyes and leaving the strong taste of salt in your mouth. The sun pokes out from the gray clouds now and again, but right now, snow is blowing sideways past my office window, and whitecaps ebb and flow on the river. When will winter leave?

Posted on 9 March 2005