Things I didn’t know about Northeastern winters

This is, as I’ve said before, my fourth winter in Boston. And while I’ve learned a few tricks for bundling up against the cold and navigating the snow-lined, slushy streets, I am continually astounded by the sheer volume of what I didn’t know about these winters before living through them.

Hence, a list.

1. Winter has a particular scent – a crisp, cold, thin one. On the first few truly frigid mornings, you can smell it in the air.
2. The days grow abruptly shorter after Daylight Savings Time ends, and this is almost more difficult than the cold.
3. Road salt is hell on boots, shoes, and dogs’ feet. (Hence the silly-looking dog booties I see around town sometimes.)
4. Clorox cleaning wipes are pretty good for cleaning road salt off said boots.
5. Sometimes the snow is thick enough that people actually have to shovel their porch roofs, lest they collapse under the weight of it.
6. Black ice is a real thing, and it is slippery, treacherous and nearly invisible.
7. The temperatures can drop low enough that it’s too cold to snow – and when the mercury rises and the snow starts falling, it actually feels warmer.
8. Down is appreciably warmer than wool.
9. Related: you need at least one down coat and one wool coat, for different types of cold days.
10. Blasting heaters indoors and frigid air outdoors make layers a necessity, and dry skin, flyaway hair, and dripping noses an inevitability. (I grew up in a warm, dry climate, where winter is a totally different and much gentler animal.)
11. Related: damp cold can be harder to take than crisp, dry cold. The former gets into your bones.
12. Piles of gray slush are infinitely harder and more depressing to walk through than fresh snow.
13. Related: puddles of melting snow/sludge can be deceptively deep.
14. Seeing light in the sky at 5:00 p.m. feels like a real victory.
15. Related: December, with its twinkly good cheer, is only the beginning of winter. The longest, hardest slog comes afterward.
16. It is possible to hate the cold and have cabin fever at the same time.
17. Your attitude toward snow changes dramatically after you watch it bury your car and street several times.
18. Related: sometimes it takes days for the snowplow to reach your street.
19. Also related: there are some streets and sidewalks that never do get plowed.
20. Despite the above, city workers and the maintenance folks at my workplace are my new heroes.
21. As long as the power’s on, you usually have to go to work no matter how bad it gets.
22. I wouldn’t have believed it, but it is possible to get tired of soup.
23. Spring clothes are infinitely tempting and also crazy-making, because you know you won’t be able to wear them till at least (at least!) April or May.
24. Taking a vacation to a warm place really does help.
25. As do Vitamin D pills and light boxes. But they are not cure-alls.
26. The sight of bare, damp earth can feel positively springy, even if it is mid-February.
27. Ditto crocuses, even if they’re peeking through snow.
28. The subway often runs more smoothly on a snow day than on a normal one.
29. If the winter is long enough and cold enough, you may start to go a little nuts and make lists like this one.

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