James Swift: After Deadline: Wintry Mixed Up

Jan. 6—Driving north on 75, I saw a warning the other day on one of those blinking DOT signs over the highway.

"Wintry mix possible," part of the message read. "Use extreme caution."

I thought about that all day. "Wintry mix" is such a great term. It's specific enough to kinda-sorta give you an idea of what it is, but still vague enough to be wide open for interpretation.

First of all, when I hear "wintry mix," I don't think about weather conditions. To me, it sounds more like something you'd buy at a candy shop around the holidays. "Wintry mix — white chocolate pretzels and gumdrops, $4.99 a tin."

You know there's some ambiguity on the hard science when there isn't even a technical Wikipedia page for "wintry mix." You type it into Google and you get redirected to an entry called "rain and snow mixed together." Wouldn't it be easier to consolidate that into one word?

Per the Wikipedia entry, "wintry mix" is supposed to be an admixture of freezing rain, ice pellets and snow.

By the way, there are distinct scientific differences between "slush," "sleet" and "glaze," which I've been using interchangeably pretty much my whole life.

And none of those things are the same thing as "graupel" — Wikipedia tells me that's basically soft hail or snow pellets.

So when the DOT is telling me to watch out for "wintry mix," are they telling me to watch out for literally all of that stuff happening at the same time? Or are they just casting a wide enough net here to sound like they know what they're talking about when really, they have no idea WHAT motorists might be encountering out there?

Driving through rain and driving through snow are totally different. And driving through hail and driving on black ice ain't the same thing, either. We're going to need more precise instructions than "use extreme caution," I'm afraid.

How about "you know, it's probably not a good idea for an 18-wheeler to barrel down a frozen highway at 90 miles per hour?" Or maybe "look, we don't know WHAT we're supposed to call all that junk falling out of the sky, but just make sure you've got your low beams on, OK?"

That's the great thing about having a commute like mine. From mile marker to mile marker, the elevation never stays the same. So technically, the weather conditions I encounter at exit 315 and exit 333 could be wildly different.

Nah, go ahead and scratch that "could" part. They ARE wildly different. There's this one stretch of 75 between Resaca and south Whitfield where you pretty much have to mash the gas pedal to the floorboard just to make it uphill. There have been a couple of days where the lower parts of the road are blanketed in fog, but around exit 326 I'm at an elevation high enough to put me ABOVE the fog.

So needless to say, what constitutes "wintry mix" in Dalton may not apply in Calhoun. Whitfield County could be experiencing a snowstorm, but in Adairsville, it's 70 degrees. I'm telling you, the geography of Northwest Georgia is something else.

"Wintry mix" in the forecast or not, I've learned my lesson. Two things you ought to invest in right now are ice scrapers and windshield protective covers. Imagine my delight when I woke up a couple days ago and found my car looking like a popsicle. Who doesn't want to start their day sitting around for 20 minutes waiting for the windshield to stop looking like a Picasso painting? Especially when the heater takes 21 minutes to actually start spitting hot air at you.

The next few months won't be fun. It gets midnight black at 5:30 in the afternoon and with the wind chill up here, Jack Frost ain't nipping at your nose, he's holding you up at gunpoint. And when the "wintry mix" finally does make a landing, it'll be dang near impossible to get out of your own driveway, let alone complete a three-county back-and-forth commute.

I think I'm going to buy an extra pair of gloves this weekend just to be safe. And maybe a scarf, even if it means all of you are going to make fun of me for wearing it.

Winter, whether we like it or not, is in full swing. I'd prefer the white chocolate pretzels and gumdrops, personally.

James Swift is the managing editor of the Dalton Daily Citizen.