If April showers bring May flowers, what do April snowstorms
bring? A very confused and grumpy student body.
- Shabina Khatri
- JONATHON TRIEST/Daily
Snow blankets the rooftops of buildings and sidewalks on South University Avenue yesterday after what most hope to be the last snowfall of this season.
About five inches of snow covered campus yesterday, leaving
pants soggy and sidewalks icy.
“I thought it was a nightmare when I woke up. I don’t like the
wind, and I don’t like the cold,” LSA freshman Rachel Johnson
said.
But the drastic change in weather conditions is not remarkable
and carries no global implication, Engineering junior Doug Gossiaux
said. “The amount of snow is more than normal, but is still not
that unusual for April,” he said.
“Yesterday’s downfall does not even compete with the record 25
inches of snow,” added Gossiaux, a meteorology major who is in the
Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences program.
The sudden blast of wintry weather has not surprised many
students.
“That’s the thing about Michigan weather. When you think there
is going to be change, it goes back to what it was three months
ago,” LSA freshman Gerald Duncan said.
Although students recognized the change was not out of the
ordinary, some were still unenthusiastic about the colder climate.
“I’m sick of slipping and sliding. I wish spring would just come
and stay,” LSA freshmen Esther Cho said.
But, not everyone had negative things to say about yesterday’s
weather.
“This is very Michigan-like and never fails to surprise me.
Everything is still so beautiful,” LSA freshman Olga Mantilla
said.
Gossiaux attributed the snowfall to a cold front combining with
a normal amount of precipitation.
According to DPS reports, there have been no accidents or
injuries as a result of yesterday’s storm. But seven people, all
tourists from China, were killed when their van went out of control
on a slush-covered highway in central Pennsylvania and plunged down
a bank, state police said. Two traffic deaths were blamed on the
storm in Nebraska, with one in Wisconsin. Around the Great Lakes,
the snow was preceded by a weekend ice storm blamed for four deaths
in Michigan and three in upstate New York.
More than a foot of wet, heavy snow fell on parts of Nebraska
and southern Minnesota, and a foot was possible in the highlands of
Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains and northern New Jersey. Schools
closed from Nebraska to New York City.
Utilities in southeastern Michigan said nearly 250,000 homes and
businesses still had no power yesterday morning. DTE Energy
officials were concerned about how the heavy, sticky snow would
affect power lines already coated with a half inch of ice.
– The Associated Press contributed to this report.