Snow Snakes

I felt kind stupid the first time it happened. Then it happened again the next week, a little different, but it happened. Two storms, two weeks, two incidences of vetigo, I gotta tell you about this.

Spring is just around the corner here in New South Montucky. We hare had a fairly mild winter. The snow has been poor to crap, severely limiting my ability to enjoy my other passion. The storms/snow we did get blanketed the earth in a few inches of the white stuff, only to be blown into neighboring states or melted by the above average temps a few days later. The longest the snow stuck around was maybe a week. Ten days at best. One of these storms, the same weather system that gave Jet Blue a black eye, affected Squidtown a few days earlier.

It was the end of the storm, and the first VFR day since the snow flew. The Squid Town airport manger and his crew had done a great job of removing snow off the various airport surfaces. So good in fact, that the surfaces were bare and dry.

I had started my preflight a little early so that I could facilitate a few minutes extra in my schedule. I wanted to make sure the TSIO-520’s that power the SUV were good and warm before I asked them for warp speed.

I taxied the SUV into the run-up area where I positioned myself into the 18-20 kt wind. I set the brakes, set the engine power to a high idle, checked to see that the oil temp was on the rise and reached for the manifest to finish up the weight and balance calculations.

Heads down, engines warming, I began to punch the numbers into the calculator and transfer them to the manifest. As I worked, I began to feel strangely disoriented and dizzy. “YOU’RE MOVING!” my mind screamed as I smashed the brakes to the firewall. I looked up only to see long ribbons of drifting snow, 10-12 ft long, snaking past the aircraft….

…It was the mid eighties and dad and I were on the way to a local ranch to work cattle. I would get to be dad’s “helper” today. I stared out the window at the -15 degree New South Montucky snowscape as the old grey Ford rattled down the county road. Riding in Old Grey was always an adventure. Dad made it a point to show my brother and I local landmarks, where the crossroads led, various client ranches, native plants and grasses, and of course, the veterinarian’s favorite, wild life.

“Look! Snow Snakes!” dad exclaimed. I peeled my tongue from the frosty window expecting to see white, scaly reptiles slithering on the road. Yet in the back of my mind I wondered how on earth a reptile would move on such a cold day.

“Nuh Uh!” I exclaimed back as my eyes scanned the road, spotting only those long ribbons of drifting snow, snaking their way diagonally across the road…..

Two weeks later I find myself turning base to final to runway 12 at Cow Town after our latest snow storm. The winds are 100 degrees 27 gusting to 35. I notice, contrary to the NOTAM for 1” loose snow, that the airport manager has plowed the runway or the wind has carried the snow to the next state. The runway appears bare and dry save for the snow snakes crawling diagonally across the runway.

I plant the SUV on the piano keys, knowing that in this wind I will easily make intersection Charlie. As I near the intersection, snow snakes passing harmlessly under the wings, it suddenly dons on me that at this rate of speed I will in fact NOT make Charlie.

Quickly sizing up the situation and sensory overload reaching it’s climax, I discover with a quick test of the brakes, that the runway is dry and that the brakes are working properly and yet the runway lights have stopped moving, while the runway continues to rush past.

When my mind finally catches up to my body and the rest of the aircraft, I find myself 50’ short of the intersection, standing on the brakes in the middle of the runway, sitting in a motionless airplane whose props are idly slicing and dicing snow snakes as they race past the aircraft at 30 kts.

I hope nobody is watching, because I feel pretty stupid right now. Stupid snow snakes.