Snow Big Deal

The snowstorm that passed through the American East turned out to be a raspberry for the greater New York area, which includes northern New Jersey, where what little snow that fell wasn't even enough to be considered a dusting. But it was very different in central and southern New Jersey, and especially Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and much of Virginia and West Virginia. In some parts of New Jersey the snow measured anywhere between 18 and 24 inches, and it got up to 30 inches in the nation's capital. Snowfall totals for Washington were the most for a single storm in ninety years.

Maybe the politicians will take advantage of being snowed in together and accomplish something.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned DJ Pete Fornatale had his annual midwinter show on New York's WFUV-FM. As always, he devoted his air time to songs about or mentioning winter with, of course, special emphasis on winter songs - "Sleigh Ride," Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland" - that are associated exclusively with Christmas and are no longer played on the radio after the holiday season but have nothing to do with Christmas. He set out to play six different versions of "Winter Wonderland" to drive the point home.

Five were played. See, Fornatale was not on the air live; he taped his show, or at least his studio banter, in advance. Someone at the station must have screwed up, because when Dion's version of "Winter Wonderland" was supposed to be played, the station aired Dion's cover of "White Christmas" instead.

Oops.

Anyway, residents of northern New Jersey and New York City will get to walk in a winter wonderland soon enough. Another winter storm is predicted for Wednesday, and this one should hit our area, though maybe not as severely as the previous storm hit the rest of the mid-Atlantic region. We'll see. We in the greater New York area have been lucky this winter; this will only be the second big storm of the season. But I still can't wait for spring.