Ah, winter. Interesting times. Now in theory, I shouldn't even be writing this right now. I should be getting ready to leave for work, as I was this time last year. However, we are expected to get some freezing rain and a few inches of snow here shortly, and - in accordance with every joke, meme, and statement about how the Southeast responds to winter - Georgia declared a state of emergency and the Mayor of Atlanta requested that all businesses close early. Although this winter has mainly consisted of sunny days wearing shorts, I get to stay home today.

Around this same time last year, I worked for Red Bull up in Cleveland, Ohio. Despite severe weather and an almost two hour commute from Kent to Solon (about 35 minutes on a good day), my job proceeded as normal: take a company vehicle and visit customers in the surrounding area. I'm pretty sure I worked in the Avon area that day, which was about another hour from our offices. The snowfall was about the same, if not a tad bit worse. Within a few hours, most of the major interstates were entirely clear, and many of the major local roads were as well.

I can say for certainty that every joke we hear about how different regions, from the Southeast to the Midwest to everywhere in between, respond to inclement weather is pretty much on point. I spent most of my life in Northern Virginia which was somewhere in the middle: we had sufficient resources to deal with winter weather, but we still closed our schools at times Chicagoans would probably laugh at. We had probably a week or so of school closures each year, while a professor during my first semester of college in Northeast Ohio once said, "Your attendance is expected every day, even when the outside scenery can be mistaken for Siberia." I even started flight school there the following January, and became well-acquainted with deicing procedures, weather planning, and starting an engine in freezing weather.

However, as hilarious as these regional differences are, they tend to be based in reason. Public resources are funded by taxpayer money, and it would be an outrage for residents of Miami to pay the same amount for snowplows as residents of upstate New York. Also, skills such as driving vehicles in winter weather are not inherent, and often result from training and practice. The skill level of North Dakota drivers can't be expected of those from Florida, and as such road conditions can be far less severe but equally as damaging. I actually took an airport management class where the professor was a former manager of Miami International Airport, and he specifically said that snow and ice removal were, "admittedly, not my area of expertise."

Personally, I loved living somewhere in between: you actually got snowdays in school, but the city didn't go to complete anarchy when weather shut us down. I actually made the mistake of buying groceries today: the entire Kroger parking lot in Georgia was full, and nearly the entire aisle for bottled water was sold out. You would think a hurricane was about to come through. On the other hand, in places where this weather is entirely normal, you might not get as many of those cherished days off from class that as a student you come to depend on. Pick your poison.

Overall, I'm at that point in my life where I'm glad my winters normally consist of 50 degree days. In a place as varied as the United States, the term "winter" can always mean something entirely different.