Saturday, March 17, 2007

Weekend topic: weather?!?

I wanted to continue the sports talk in light of what's happening at the NCAA tournament, but I thought weather might be something interesting to address. Weather's usually a lame topic of conversation, but it's actually a fairly common question posed by our visitors. They want to know how much snow we get, how hot or cold it gets, if we close school, and so on.

Being a northerner, I find winter here pretty uneventful. Charlottesville gets some snow each year, but getting more than a dusting seems rare. A few inches is a major event here. People still talk about the blizzard that dumped a few feet of snow about 15 years ago. As for temperatures, we have four defined seasons in Cville. Winter can be cold, but I don't remember single digit temperatures in the last few years. In fact, we had quite a few spring-like days in the middle of winter.

If you're coming from the deep south or southwest, you'll want to get a good winter jacket, hats, scarves, gloves/mittens, and some boots before you come to school. Every year there are a few students who think a North Face fleece will get them through the winter. You need something a little more substantial than that. You don't need monster boots, as the snow doesn't get too high here, but you'll need something to come between your foot and the cold ground for those walks to class.

In case you were wondering, UVa doesn't have snow days. Sorry, kids.