With spring just around the corner and winter hopefully in the rear-view, nobody, myself included, seems to be sad to see the cold weather go. Upstate New York winters are not for the faint of heart. The average day during the winter months seems to feature a high of 20 degrees and constant snow. Often, during January and February, when there are two feet of snow on the ground and lows are in the negatives, most students begin to lament the weather. Summer feels so far away, winter feels like it will never end and many are questioning their decision not to go to school in warmer states.
It’s hard during the winter to talk to friends from home who are at school in much warmer climates and hear about how they did their homework outside because it was so sunny and beautiful in the middle of February. While I am in total agreement with most people that the winters are brutal and summer cannot come any sooner, I think the brutally cold, snowy winters are necessary for thoroughly enjoying and appreciating the summers. As light cannot exist without dark, a nice summer cannot exist without a cold winter.
While it would be nice to experience weather in the mid-70s with the sun shining all year long, it would be too monotonous. If the weather were the same all year round, even if it were beautiful, warm and sunny, it would not have the same thrill of a sudden warm day after a particularly tough winter like this past one. It puts our experience into perspective when the weather reaches 50 degrees in March, and we see people wearing shorts and flip-flops.
Thanks to our winters, Colgate students have a heightened appreciation for warmer weather. It would be hard and almost annoying to hear this argument at the beginning of the spring semester when the worst of the winter is yet to come, but cold winters indeed make us savor spring and summer. The difficulty of walking up the hill through wind and snow makes walking to class with melting frost and a warm breeze feel like summer, even if it is only 45 degrees. 20 minutes of sunshine in March feels just as good as a beautiful day in July because we have become accustomed to a constant gray sky.
Hypothetically, if Colgate were in a warmer state where the average temperature throughout the winter was around 60 degrees, we would be dreading this upcoming week. The weather we’ve been experiencing for the past few days would feel cold and we’d likely be complaining about the temperature outside right now. A high of 60 degrees would be a familiar sight this time of year, and we wouldn’t think anything of it.
But since Colgate students experience the brunt of the Upstate New York winters, we’re seeing people going on walks into town and wearing t-shirts. When we leave Frank, the person working the front desk tells us to enjoy the warm weather coming up. The winters we experience are so important, crucial even, for us to truly appreciate the warm weather of the spring and summer months. Our winters are grounding, humbling and necessary.
Over the next few weeks, we will hopefully notice the last of the snow melting. We will hear the birds chirping on campus for the first time in months, we will feel the sun shining on our skin when we walk to class and we will recognize the fresh smell of spring. For all of this, we have our winters to thank. Colgate winters allow us to recognize the signs of spring, the hope that it brings and how fortunate we are to finally be experiencing warm weather. Later in the spring, when the trees begin to grow leaves and the flowers begin to bloom, winter will feel so far away. In those moments, remembering what our experience of winter was like gives us a deeper appreciation for the warm weather we should never take for granted.
