Failed to impress

I know many of you were concerned for those of us in the Northeast, forced to shovel out of a "record snowfall" (and by "were concerned," I mean "found it hilarious"). Well, not so much.

So if this weekend's storm was really the biggest, why did it not feel like it? Meteorologists and historians offered several reasons.

The timing of the storm was obviously a big one. There was no rush hour to disrupt on Sunday, and the snow stopped soon enough for the plows to get in gear. The city had plenty of warning, and because the winter had been mostly a washout until then, the stockpiles of road salt were full.

Another big one was — for lack of a better phrase — the fluffy effect. Because the track of this storm was relatively far offshore, it did not pack the wallop of wet warm ocean air that northeasters can, so the snow was dry and fluffy. Very, very fluffy. Like a Persian cat in a roomful of hair dryers. Thus it blew right off tree branches rather than snapping them down onto power lines. It practically shoveled itself.

With a still-aching shoulder, I'm not sure I'd say it "shoveled itself."

Anyway, if the quality of the snow wasn't enough to make the blizzard less disruptive, turns out global warming is making us taller.

Perhaps perception, and the psychological need to embrace and even exaggerate the old days in one's memory, has led to past blizzards' being described in apocalyptic terms. Then again, people were shorter then, so the drifts may well have seemed deeper. Seriously.

In 1947, New Yorkers were, on average, more than an inch shorter than they are today. In 1888, when the blizzard that is branded on the city's collective memory as the Greatest of All Time hit New York, people were, on average, about three inches shorter.

"That would affect people's impressions of getting through deep snow," said Richard H. Steckel, an economics professor at Ohio State University, who has analyzed changes in human height.

In '96, I wasn't able to make it in to New York City for nearly a week. That storm felt much, much worse. Of course, Rudolph Giuliani was mayor at the time, so everything felt much, much worse.