The radar screen doesn’t lie, but I wish it did. That big swirl of blue and white over Michigan means business. And from what the National Weather Service here in Grand Rapids is saying, business is about to escalate to a fever pitch–or should I say, a blizzard pitch. We”re looking at the potential for a foot of snow and winds upwards of forty miles per hour, beginning soon and extending through tomorrow.

This is a huge winter storm system, affecting pretty much the whole Midwest. But southern Michigan, northern Indiana, and northern Ohio appear to be the epicenter. Batten down the hatches, gang. Winter is arriving with frozen claws and icy fangs.

If you”ve read my post on Supercell Deficiency Sydrome, you know how I feel about winter. I am not a fan. In fact, my enthusiasm for snow is so minute as to escape detection by the world”s most powerful microscopes. But some storm chasers dote on winter storms. For this group of lunati–er, hardy and resourceful weather lovers–a good snowfall is Utopia; a blizzard, transcendence; a whiteout, bliss.

And then there is thundersnow. Now, that is something I must admit is pretty darn cool. (The preceding pun was not intended, merely allowed.) Not cool enough that I”ll go looking for it, though, which is what separates me from the serious thundersnow aficionado. If you”re a chaser who falls into the snow-freak category, you will drive miles to experience thundersnow. Come on, now, you know it”s true! I”ve read the posts in Stormtrack. There are a lot of you out there.

I can”t arouse myself to that level of devotion; I”m perfectly content to let snow come to me, with or without thunder. It never fails to do so, in quantities I”ve always found to be more than sufficient. Still, I do love it when the occasional rumble comes rolling through the wintry gray. That doesn”t happen often here in West Michigan, but I understand the phenomenon is not all that uncommon in Ohio, where the lake effect snow bands come whipping off of Lake Erie.

As I understand it, thundersnow requires cloud tops to reach a certain height, somewhere in the order of 25,000 or 30,000 feet. At that point, they”re capable of discharging lightning, just like a regular summer thunderstorm–except, of course, for the obvious difference in precipitation type.

This opens up new possibilities for entertainment in the winter wonderland. Let”s say, for instance, that you”re out in the meadow with your significant other, building a snowman and pretending he is Parson Brown. You give him a nice, pleasant smiley face, and you plug in two lumps of charcoal for his eyes and one lump for a cute little button nose, and you wrap a scarf around his neck, and you stick a top hat on his head, and you stick an umbrella in his hand, and suddenly WHOOOOOOOM!!! the whole freaking world ignites before your eyes, and the next thing you know, you”re sitting on your butt twenty feet from where you had been, and Parson Brown has been replaced by a smoking crater surrounded by melted snow. His cute button nose falls out of the sky and beans you on the noggin. You should never have put that umbrella in his hands–it might just as well have been a lightning rod. What were you thinking! You forgot all about thundersnow, didn”t you? Let that be a lesson.

Anyway, while I”m by no means crazy about winter weather in general, I like the idea of thundersnow. It is my one ray of joy, my bluebird of happiness between now and the spring storm season. But I still say, bring on March, when the serious convective weather begins to roll in. That”s when blizzard chasers rejoin the ranks of the rest of us storm chasers who have been hunkered down for the winter. When moisture from the Gulf of Mexico starts pumping back into the Great Plains, we”ll all be out there once again in search of tornadoes. Thank heaven, sanity will return.

You’ve heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), right? Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s kid stuff compared to Supercell Deficiency Syndrome (SDS), a condition unique to storm chasers.

If you’re not obsessed with wild convective weather, you’ll think I’m crazy, but storm chasers know exactly what I’m talking about. You pine for warm temperatures, rich dewpoints, and high CAPE. You crack open your front door on a windy day just to enjoy the shear created by the draft. You empty a feather pillow in front of an electric fan and yell, “We have debris!” You”re desperate.

Me too.

A few minutes ago, I looked out the window to see snow flying across the parking lot here at my apartment. Yes, snow. You know: the stuff we Michiganians wax rhapsodic over at this time of year. “O lovely snow!” we say, omitting the “h” in true poetic fashion. “Lo, how it joyously pirouettes like myriad ballerinas from the soft November ether.” We love snow.

By February, though, our opinion of snow has modified somewhat, as have the adjectives we use to describe it. Snow is no longer soft white dancers twirling gracefully earthward. It is frozen pigeon poop in flake form plopping out of the sky to cover the roads with slush and ice. We no longer say, “Look at the lovely snow!” We say, “Look at that $%@& filthy white crud!” We hate snow.

Today, I notice that the snow is accompanied by wind, which as a general rule I”m fond of, but not at this time of year. Wind in April is glorious; wind in November is freekin” coooooold! I think to myself, “Four months before storm season.” Then I think, “Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Okay, well, by now you”ve gotten a feel for the kind of guy I am. Positive. Creative. Motivated. Do you think for a minute that I intend to spend this winter languishing indoors, cocooning myself in the throes of SDS, weeping and pining away for the lack of decent storm chasing weather? Yup, that’s the plan. No, wait a minute…I mean, no way! I’m an upbeat kinda guy, a regular little sunbeam, so of course I have a goal for these next few months. I”m going to use them to bone up on my forecasting skills. I’ve contacted the National Weather Service here in Grand Rapids, and I”m making arrangements with a couple of the meteorologists there to give my two storm chasing partners and I a little coaching. I”m totally serious about this. I”m hoping that by the time the 2008 storm season begins to roll in sometime around March, my buddies and I will know a lot more about severe weather forecasting. We didn”t do bad in 2007, not for three lads from Michigan. But I”d like to do better this coming year. I’d like to be equipped to make better, more knowledgeable judgment calls in the face of the constantly shifting atmosphere. I know enough now to realize that, when all is said and done, some decisions will still be a flip of the coin. It’ll just be a better-informed flip.

Okay, okay, enough on that, eh? I’ve grown into an incorrigible weather freak, and some of the stuff I””ve written is probably gobbledegook to you. That”s one of the joys of learning: building up a huge stockpile of terminology to sling around, thereby impressing myself with my vast knowledge and boring the crap out of everyone else.

In all seriousness, I miss the storms. I really do. They make me come alive in a very special, wonderful way. But Supercell Deficiency Syndrome or not, I”ll make it through this winter–and you will too. These next few months are just a reminder that life has its seasons. And, like you, I have things to keep me occupied. Besides educating myself in weather, I hope to get more involved in my church and build my writing and music businesses. I’d like to make this frozen season a fruitful one. By God”s grace, I will.

So maybe winter isn’t such a bad thing after all.

But snow is still frozen pigeon poop. That”s my opinion, and I”m stickin” to it like bird turds on cold pavement.