#361 The first snowfall of the season

Neil Pasricha

Crystal flakes form in space before floating down from cloudy skies.

Soon blankets of white coat sidewalks like icing and frosty corners freeze in shady yards by the shed. Scarves twist tightly around necks, noses sniffle and turn red, and everyone walks the streets with wide eyes and snowy lashes. Boots slip and slide on the sidewalk, mittens swipe seats in the park, and branches glow under a silent new moonlit world.

Sometimes the first snowfall gets your bones excited about everything the season brings — family moments, quiet times, holiday shopping, and grandma’s cooking. It’s a symbol of venturing out into a new world and bunkering into an old one.

When the snow flies down for the first time everything slows down around you and nostalgia bombs burst in your brain … of slip-sliding to school on sidewalks, slushy snowball fights in the park, and sticky mittens rolling snowmen on the front lawn…

AWESOME!

Make it an awesome Christmas!

Photos from: here and here

84 thoughts to “#361 The first snowfall of the season”

    2. You NEED to experience it! It’s not Christmas without a snowy winter! I grew up in Minnesota and loved the snow. Now I live in San Francisco and my brain is freaking out with the lack of seasons. I can’t wait to get back to Minnesota in a couple weeks!

  3. Had that last week in Washington state. They cancelled school for two days, so naturally we had a huge snowball fight on campus :) even as grown college students, the very sight of snow turns us all into little kids again. I love it!

    1. Gah! I left Bellingham a mere three days before that!!! Sad to have missed it but we were having some beach weather down in FL…

  4. Am I the only one who thinks the girl on the right in the photo looks very creepy?! Perhaps because I’m viewing this on my phone though.

    The first snowfall is quite exciting, but I wish we got snowdays here… They never happen. :( you’d think especially since I live in Alberta and all… But nope! :(

  6. We had the first snow of the season last week (on the 25th of November) here in Western Europe, and it’s been snowing ever since. I’ve never known it to be so cold so early on in the season. But I can’t say I like it, it brings along loads of problems in traffic and otherwise. On days like these I wish I lived in a southern country!

    2. I heard about how bad the weather is for you guys right now. Stay warm…I hope it gets better soon!

      1. Thanks…I’m even stressing to take my car to the supermarket today, the roads are so slippery right now. Hope I make it back in one piece.

  8. I miss snow so much!! Where I live now, there’s no such thing and the sun is still shining. But this post brought back so many lovely memories :)

  10. This is so appropriate for the UK right now! We’ve been having so much snow for the last week or so- it’s the earliest widespread snowfall for a really long time! Love this!

  11. Pfffft snow? I’ve never seen it, even when we went to New Zealand in July. Meanwhile you are having lovely cold days and snowy nights and we are having 31-35 degree days in Australia -___- And our school is on top of a hill so we get full on sun.

    1. Australia! . yess! :) but i don’t know where you are, but it must’n be sydney because its been raining the whole of summer :( feels a lot like winter again!

      1. In little Bunbury! 2 hours south of Perth, WA. Well it was really cold last night and this morning, and yesterday was actually cool… but before that, it was like those temperatures i said. And it was like the middle of spring when it started getting hot! What is this???!

        1. Man I must relocate to Perth! .. the weather here is absolutely misserable!. The weekend just past was pretty hot & sticky.. BUT still raining! :( that sucked big time!
          & boy the mozzies! . ahhh I’m going crazy scratching & hearing that little buzz in your ear right when your about to fall asleep!.

          1. ugh, yuck yuck yuck. I like it when its humid but cool and raining at the same time, so its warm enough but you dont get sweaty because of the rain… yeah most of my friends like hot weather XP We havent really had many mozzies over here, but the FLIES! ARGHHHHH Im going crazy! Why do they have to be so sociable and friendly???!

  12. The first snowfall in my area was yesterday!! None of it stuck to the ground though, but there was big, fluffy snowflakes one minute then the next minute it was heavy wet snow and fell like it was trying to be a blizzard. Then, back to the big, fluffy snowflakes. Love it. I love snow so much. The only thing I don’t like about snow is when it is the cause for bad roads.

  13. Your descriptions are always so perfect.

    I cannot wait until it snows here! I get just as excited as a child when it snows for the first time. It was supposed to snow last week, but instead it just rained and was disgusting and puddle-y. It was a complete disappointment. Hopefully it’ll snow here soon.

    Also, this: “It’s a symbol of venturing out into a new world and bunkering into an old one.” totally took me back to #932. Love it :)

    1. Not good when you hear its going to snow and you get all excited for it and it turns out its just rain. The weather people hear called for snow a couple weeks ago and all we got was a little rain. I like rain…but when I’m told its going to snow and it doesn’t, well that’s just a disappointment.

        1. Our next snow shower is this Saturday! Woo!! Hopefully it will be the big fluffy snowflakes.
          I’ll click my heels together and cross my fingers and grant you snow in the near future

  14. Yes! Winter is my absolute favorite. And even though we’ve had out “first snow” a couple times here in Montreal, I never cease to have my mood instantly lifted by it.

  16. Well, here in Florida, we have our first cold front and it’s 40 degrees. (That’s Antarctica for us!) Does that count?

  17. We’re still waiting here in Toronto. I never take the first snowfall for granted. It’s always magical. I love my beautiful country and it’s four seasons!

      1. Wish I had snow tyres over here! It’s been snowing in Ireland for a week now, and the whole place is chaos! I’ve been walking the hour into work every day :( I’ve never prayed for rain so much in my life!

  19. I adore the snow! I’m a kid all over again, nose pressed up to the window to watch and guess how much we’ll get. And, snow days are the BEST days! Thanks for this post…it’s in my top ten of awesome. Bring on the icy, slushy, freezing, crunching, silvery white snow!

  20. That was today in Berlin, Germany too! And some 7 inches of it :D It totally made my day. Awesome!

  21. lol We got our first snowfall sometime in October. Yay for Central Alberta weather! I love waking up to fresh snow. When I still lived close enough to walk to work everyday, the best part of my day was being the first one to put tracks in the fresh snow.

  23. My hometown is Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I’m currently attending school in London, Ontario, Canada. It is flurry-ing in both cities today! I’m so happy!! Today’s blog post is AWESOME!!! ;D

  26. Snow over here too! :D I live in Belgium, where we mostly get rain, so it’s good to have some snow every now and then. Though I must say: I was quite surprised, the snowfall came quite early this year.
    It is true, snow is horrible to traffic, annoying people throw snowballs at you, after a while the snow turns into grey-brownish piles of goo and above all – you will freeze to death xD BUT! Snow is awesome :D I love to walk in it!

  27. I know no one else that feels this way. I always get excited about snow but everytime i talk about it to friends they all hate it. I love snow i hate the cold but snow makes it so much better.

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  32. The pictures definitely bring back a happy-time smile.

    My first memory of the floating starry-white miracles of science was back in 1960 just after my birthday in early December. I was 7 and woke up to fresh snow floating down from the morning skies. The grass was covered with 3 inches of the white stuff.

    After breakfast was done, Mom dressed us up warm and we were out to make our first snow man with my Dad and my sister. Truly Awesome!!

  33. I live in Brazil and it’s summer all year long here (at least where I live).
    But I was an exchange student in Canada. And I will never forget the first time I saw snow. Waking up early in the morning and seeing a completely different world outside. Just like magic :)

  35. I interrupted a Skype call with my parents (who are 5,000 miles and one hemisphere away) to play in the first snowfall.

    Seven days and 13 inches later, I’m kinda over it.

  36. I just came in from a nice walk with my husband and dogs. Nice fluffy stuff – I’m trying to act like I don’t know what’s to follow. . . .

  37. I wish I got to experience a “first snow fall of the season” every year but I live in baton rouge, Louisiana. Yet the past two winters it has snowed! And it was AWESOME. Come to think of it, I experienced the first snowfall of the season in NYC two years ago. Made the trip so much better but I was gracious to go back to the 60/70 degree weather back home after a week of snowy weather :)

  38. We had a huge snowfall of perfect packing snow here in Oshawa, ON at my boarding high school on the 1st. We were all acting like kindergarteners at lunchtime–making snow angels and building an angry snowman staring in the window of the French classroom, and having a massive 30-person snow ball fight. Never mind the fact that none of us were dressed for it–it was awesome! :)

  39. The first snowfall is one of the things I look forward to most of all each year. I was up north and we got snow in October but I came back down to Southern Ontario and it was all brown and gross. Then one day it was raining like crazy, I didn’t look outside for 5 minutes and then suddenly everything was covered in snow. Awesome!

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  42. This might be my favorite ‘awesome’ so far because it is one of the top ‘awesomes’ in my book. I look forward to this day every autumn because it’s one of the few things that make me feel better about putting up with the chilling cold weather.

    Thanks for the reminder! I’m still waiting for our first day of snow in Rhode Island!

  44. The first snow fall of the year is one of my favorite days. I love snow, the winter season would be dreaful without it

  45. Early-December for where I live :) That’s a good thing considering it usually doesn’t snow until Valentines Day most of the time.
    When the snow started falling, I almost yelled AWESOME!

  47. Especially great when you’re at school doing something really boring, and then somebody near the window shouts, “Hey, it’s snowing!” And everybody crowds around the window and cheers and hypothesizes about snow days and your teacher stands there watching you, but he doesn’t care. This NEVER ends, my grade 7/8 class still does it.

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