Friday Frivolity: Winter in the Buckeye State

Some scenes from this year's snows

These pictures are what I think of when I think of winter in Ohio.  We in Ohio are blessed with many things, but consistent weather is not one of them.  Unless you like randomness, there are better places in the country to live weather-wise.  It's nothing to have rain, snow, sunshine, fog and clear skies in a 24 hour period.  On the flip side, however, that means if you like one particular season more than the other, you might just get your wish many times throughout the year at the most random moments. 

For us cold weather types, we might have to make it through the odd Indian Summer or warming trends even as we were building snowmen the day before.  As a general rule, we don't typically get your big Northeast (or even northern Midwest) winters.  Except for the areas north of Akron/Canton and along the lake, our winters are typically of a milder sort.  Only rarely will we see the foot or more of snow sustained for months on end.  Even when I was young and - yes, it's true - winters were generally colder and longer than today, the snow was usually measured in inches most of the time.  

So when I think of winter, I think of light snows.  An inch or two perhaps.  I don't expect trees weighed down by tons of thick snow like a Currier and Ives greeting card.  Instead there will be a slight dusting of the branches.  Just enough to say 'winter.'  

Because I'm in central Ohio, we have farms and fields aplenty.  Therefore it isn't snowcapped mountains, or even rolling hills, but endless acres of fields colored white.  But it isn't Kansas or Nebraska either.  The fields, especially compared to our more western brethren, tend to be smaller and more compact, usually broken by lines of trees or small woods scattered here and there.  As you look out on fields, you'll always see behind them some tree line, mostly coniferous, but the odd pinewoods can sometimes be visible. 

Streams and brooks also make their way through and around the fields.  Outside of deserts, you expect to see a fair share of rivers and waterways anywhere you go.  But Ohio seems to have them in large numbers, and no walk through the fields or woods will last long before you have to navigate some small brook or rivulet.  Even then, while small, these little watercourses make for splendid scenery, especially when the snow dusted branches bend down over the picture.  

So that's winter for us Buckeyes.  There are other parts of Ohio, in the rolling hills of Southeastern Ohio near the mining regions, or in the northwest, closer to the lake effects of Erie and Michigan.  But for most of my life, it's been around the agricultural central regions that colors the images of my winter thinking.