Let It Snow!

​Twas four days before Christmas, and the weather outside is frightful!

Frightfully unseasonably warm that is, with a record-setting high of 70 degrees expected on Christmas Eve! While the Midwest and West have been seeing heavy snows, the Eastern Seaboard is basking in unseasonably warm weather.

The TV news anchors and weather forecasters are all snug with their smug smiles gloating about how the beautiful weather is raising people’s spirits – some people are barbecuing, wearing open-toed sandals and donning short-shorts and tank tops to jog through the park. There has been an occasional report about how the heat wave has been wreaking havoc on sweater and coat sales at Macy’s this holiday season, but I have yet to see one report on how the “beautiful” weather will be impacting the region’s supermarkets.

My prediction is: total disaster!  When fourth quarter sales results are released early next year I expect that without any snow – or errant weather forecasts of possible snow – supermarket sales are going to take a major hit compared to 2014’s fourth quarter when we were hit with several major storms.

Unseasonably hot weather and not even a mention of snow means that shoppers are not being thrown into a panic and are not descending on their local ShopRite, Foodtown, Wegmans, Stop & Shop, Acme or other store to stock up on essentials like milk, eggs, bread, bacon, cat food, cereal, Spaghetti-Os, Vienna sausages, bananas, pineapples, pomegranates or anything else that is not nailed down.

They are also not buying snow shovels, rock salt, water softener salt to substitute for rock salt when it is sold out, table salt to substitute the water softener salt when it is sold out, cat litter to substitute for table salt when it is sold out; candles, flashlights, batteries, $495 generators; fireplace matches, kindling, bundles of firewood and Duraflame logs.

And I have not heard any concerns about the environmental impact. The Star-Ledger had a front-page picture this week of a Japanese cherry tree in full bloom in Newark’s Branch Brook Park. If this warm weather continues, I suspect that peach and apple trees, blueberry bushes, and other plants will start blossoming too, only to die when we finally do get a cold snap. Then come July and August the media will lament that we have no fresh produce.   

These are the same TV anchors who when we finally get a steady week or two of below freezing temperatures will turn to the weatherman and ask, “How much longer do we have to put up with this cold weather?”

It is a good thing I am not on TV because my response would be, “Honey, it’s winter. Wear a dress with sleeves!”