For the average southerner, a real winter is more something we fantasize about than we actually experience. We talk with confidence during August about how football games will be colder in October, but by November, we're still sweating in the stands. We picture what a white Christmas will look like, but we end up wearing shorts and blasting the AC. Usually, a southern winter starts in January and lasts until mid-March if we are lucky. While most of the country is having their normal winters, southerners get stuck with freezing cold mornings wrapped in every warm clothing item they can find and super hot afternoons spent in flip flops and t-shirts. A southern winter is the most unpredictable season in the south. So here are the top seven things southerners know to be true about this ridiculous season.

1. What really even is winter? One day we're wearing shorts and flip flops and the next day we're wearing a parka. We never know what to wear before we step outside. It's a constant battle between dressing really warm or really cold.

2. Our winter clothes hardly get touched, and we constantly get asked if we just bought our jacket, boots, scarf, etc. because no one hardly ever gets to see them.

3. When it does start to get cold half the population will start wearing their fleece lined leggings while the other half will insist on wearing shorts until their legs turn blue from cold. The struggle definitely is real.

4. The first sign of ice on the roads and we freak out and don't know what to do with ourselves. It is literally the bane of our existence.

5. With the cold comes the wind, and it will NOT STOP BLOWING. It's a never ending cycle of horrible for three months.

6. A blizzard in the south consists of snow flurries and maybe an inch of snow on the ground. Snow equals mass panic and everyone running to Wal-Mart to buy "supplies."

7. Despite our fear of the snow, we also secretly love it and act like we've never seen it before if we actually do get a decent snow, which happens maybe every ten years.