A Sports Car With Snow Tires
I now know the formula for making snow, or at least the type of snow which falls in the spring. It is really quite simple. All I need to do is take the snow tires off my car. As soon as I do, it snows.
I do not indulge myself very often. But a few years ago I bought myself a sports car. A Saab 93. A convertible is extremely impractical in Michigan. Our summers are far too short. But I do love it. For a few weeks each year I can drive like a Southern Californian.
I do not have enough wealth to keep a sports car in storage all winter. It would be nice to have a summer car and a winter car. It is not going to happen.
So my sports car is my year-round car. It has front wheel drive and handles reasonably well in winter. One would suppose that Swedes would know how to build a vehicle that can be driven in snow.
For even better traction, I bought a pair of snow tires for the front two wheels. “Sports car with snow tires” seems like an oxymoron, but it works for me.
I’ve been caught a few times without the snow tires, either when I’ve procrastinated in November or been too quick to remove them in March.
Last spring I kept the snow tires on several extra weeks to be safe. When the weather finally got reasonable in southern Michigan, I took the snow tires off. I then drove to northern Michigan for a weekend. The weather had been nice up there for several weeks as well. The blizzard hit as soon as I got there.
I decided to keep the tires on even longer this year.
We had especially mild weather this year in early April. In fact, it has been almost balmy. It has been no lower than the 50s, and mostly in the 60s. For several days, the temperature reached 70! I even had the top down for a few days. I felt kind of ridiculous driving with the top down, with my snow tires.
So, on April 20th, I removed my snow tires.
Today, it is April 24. It snowed. Not just the white precipitation falling from the sky. But real, accumulate-on-the-ground type snow. I had to scrape several inches of it off my car before I could drive today (with the top up, no less).
Two years in a row may not be enough to be a scientific sample. But I am convinced. Making it snow in spring is easy.