It has been a doozy of a December, with temperatures averaging below freezing according to the Wisconsin State Climatology Office. Differing from last year’s index, we can expect a spine chilling winter year ahead of us.
I have shoveled more snow this year so far than in previous years, and it’s starting to get really annoying. The roads are miserable. The temperatures are frigid. The ice freezing clinging onto my windshield always irks me.
Winter just sucks in Wisconsin, especially when it is this confusing. It snows one day and it’s warm the next.
Even in spite of this, however, even the most tragic winter flurry can bring about a sense of serenity. Perhaps this is what Henry David Thoreau felt when he wrote his books, or even what the romantics saw was so bountiful about nature.
Mr. Miller, DPHS English teacher, agrees with this particular sentiment, fondly reminiscing upon how magical the winter can become in a flurry, how intimate it is to be at ranks with dancing snowflakes.
“The weather has been strange, it’s definitely snowed later in the season,” he said. “There is something to the first consistent snowfall I don’t think that ever becomes less magical. That transformation of the other senses does not happen with any other experience. It really does dampen sound, so there’s a hush that happens. It descends upon the world, and I think we need that in our frantic and overstimulating world.”
I think that snow may be a necessary evil, to transition from the warm summer into crisp, refreshing, and cool new year.
E.S. • Jan 22, 2026 at 2:58 pm
Spot on Cody, Spot on.