Snow in Rome

This is an older post that got forgotten-- because it's not all that interesting. I'm putting it up now with a back-dated post-time. Since this blog is, primarily, my own travel diary.

Sometimes people are surprised to hear that it can snow in Rome. It can and most winters it does. In my experience it seems typical to get two to three snow storms a year. We do not get that storm on top of storm weather that you get in the North-East United States, where the old storm has not had a chance to melt before the next one is piling on top of it.

In the North and East of Italy, they can get, and have gotten, crazy amounts of snow-- like 5 feet or even more. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise when you think the Alps and Alpenini are over there. Here in Rome, we are very close to the sea, which probably protects us from getting too much. But we all know that how serious a snow emergency is has nothing to do with how much snow, and everything to do with how much snow there is compared to what a place is used to receiving.

The first storm we had, the mayor closed schools for two days just on the weather report. It snowed all night and the next day. However, it didn't actually start sticking for hours. In the end I think we had about 5-inches. Now in general, the Italian people will stay inside if the weather is less than perfect, but obviously some people were out and about. Daniele, for example, is an ER nurse and had to go to work. So many people fell in the ice or got in car or motorbike accidents that it was an emergency at the hospital and he worked 24-hours straight. He fell in the ice too, and is now home for 20-days with a broken rib.

The second storm was even less, but again they closed the schools and even government offices this time. Also the mayor put out an ordinance that you can't enter the city by car without snow chains in your car, which we don't have. So we were basically trapped at home since we weren't sure if the buses/trains were running normally. This was a day *after* the snow had finished. Then he extended the ordinance *another* day. I was rather annoyed, cause I had shit to do. But I guess he had to because Rome basically has no plows so streets still weren't cleared. Private property, like apartment buildings or grocery stores never got plowed out. At all. Ours melted, but Daniele's parent's building is taller, so there is more shade, their lot still had snow in it yesterday.