Meteorologists in Ohio love the word precipitation. In winter climates, precipitation means something in the air that is wet and could likely become something awful, like snow, sleet, ice or what we have today–a Wintry Mix! Precipitation means wet with an unknown outcome. The resulting abbreviation, “precip” is probably the weather word that annoyed me the most last year. Obviously, precipitation is a longish word. Certainly harder to say than rain, sleet or snow. So I guess everyone feels compelled to make it fit the one syllable pattern.

Precip is likely! We’re going to have some precip! 30% chance of precip! Precip and a warm air system will result in more precip! Precip precip precip!

But now I think I hate wintry mix more. Wintry mix says to me, “we have no idea exactly what this is going to be doing and in fact, it will probably do everything before it’s done,” and that means that the shit is going to be nasty.

And it is. Wintry mix is the opposite of the winter wonderland variety of snow. Wintry mix means black, muddy slush. It is ugly, it is unpleasant to drive in, unpleasant to send the kids out to play in, unpleasant for pets, etc. This is the weather your dog refuses to go out in no matter how badly he needs to go.

Ho ho ho!