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Now the weather report, live from the USA

Given all the recent talk about publishing attendance records at City Hall, I should point out there was a noticeable absence of one individual at council chambers during budget deliberations in mid-January.
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Given all the recent talk about publishing attendance records at City Hall, I should point out there was a noticeable absence of one individual at council chambers during budget deliberations in mid-January.

That absent individual was myself! Yes, in the interests of transparency and full disclosure, I was a total no-show for two nights of city council budget deliberations in mid-January.

The reason I was gone was ill health. I was sick of the Battlefords.

More particularly, I was sick of winter, so I used up some vacation time and went to Las Vegas.

No one needed a winter getaway more than I. I was fed up dealing with all the usual negativity we have come to expect from people in the Battlefords. Second, I knew that if there is one thing that is a sure trigger for even more negativity, it is lousy winter weather.

It's getting to be a broken record, frankly. Every year, people get mad because it's minus 30 and the roads are terrible, and then they take that out on your friendly neighbourhood municipal government.

Local governments are a lightning rod for people to rant and rave about the bylaws and policies that impact on every aspect of winter, including such things as clearing streets, sidewalks and parking lots.

People are maddest of all every time some massive snow dump happens. It doesn't matter if city crews are totally overwhelmed and that every last worker is out there shivering on the streets. People will still be mad.

Sometimes, the anger is justifiable. Recently a car slid right into the river in Saskatoon due to the amount of snow that built up at the bridge. There was no excuse for that situation.

I'm talking more about the situations where the amount of snow was just too overwhelming to handle because it came down too fast. That's where you end up with impatient people venting frustration.

It's particularly unfair to the City in those situations because as any City official will tell you, weather is a federal responsibility. (That's a very old joke, by the way.)

Personally, I find that being angry is a counterproductive, total waste of time.

The only way to really address the situation is to take matters directly into your own hands.

So I found the best winter deal I could, booked my flight and headed south.

No doubt about it, this was the best Las Vegas weather yet that I've encountered in January, with temperatures approaching 20 C. The weather was so good I almost fooled myself into thinking it was summer again.

But all I needed to do was turn on the TV to be reminded winter was still going in other places.

At my hotel, I turned on the Weather Channel where there was live continuing coverage of "Winter Storm Janus," a big blizzard that snowed under several states on the East Coast. They showed plenty of scenes of MetLife Stadium, home to the Super Bowl, completely buried in snow.

I looked at these TV reports and just laughed at all these people having to deal with the lousy winter weather.

That laughter continued all week in sunny Las Vegas, right up to the moment that I disgustedly got off the plane at Saskatoon airport to find the entire city covered in snow.

Returning to work, I read the reports of the latest nasty weather hitting the United States dubbed "Winter Storm Leon."

This storm pushed winter weather conditions down to a region that almost never experiences these kinds of conditions - the deep South.

It was a particular mess in Atlanta, Ga. Even though the amount of snow they got wasn't huge, there were reports of complete chaos with cars sliding around and crashing, and the city basically shut down.

No wonder. They just don't have the infrastructure to deal with snow down there.

Who took the blame for this situation? Why, who else - their own friendly neighbourhood municipal government.

Those reports prompt laughter of a different order from Saskatchewan residents - laughter of the "they can't handle winter" variety.

It's amazing. People here are quick to pile on about the terrible job being done here to clear the roads in winter, yet the moment they hear stories like this, they turn around and brag about how well prepared we are. It's almost a point of pride for people here to say "we can handle winter! We're tough!"

I'm almost thinking maybe the crews and the ordinary individuals who clear the snow and keep roads in the best shape they can during the winter months don't get nearly the credit they deserve.

People take for granted the work done to make our roads drivable in winter. Moreover, a lot of us underestimate how tough winter can really be. There are enough times when blizzard conditions are so overwhelming that even our highways get closed and our own cars end up in the ditch, despite all the equipment we have at our disposal. Then there are the times the temperatures dip so low that our cars won't start.

Yet somehow we all manage, each and every winter.

Personally, I'm continually amazed at how so many Saskatchewan residents think nothing of driving down highways in howling blizzards to get where they want to get to. So many people have this stubborn refusal to let the ice and snow get in the way of living their lives.

With our harsh winter conditions we are tougher and more able to deal with the ice and snow conditions than even we give ourselves credit for, most of the time.