March in New York...

...is probably not as nice as April in Paris. I can't really say, never having been to Paris. But I would hope that April in Paris is a little more consistent than March in New York. Case in point: today, the 8th, was a rather nice day. Near 40 degrees Fahrenheit, with a mostly clear sky and an occasional gust of wind. The wind picked up slightly in the evening, but, overall, it proved to be quite nice. However, I was dismayed to find, this evening, that the National Weather Service has posted a winter weather advisory for Dutchess county, where I currently reside, for Thursday the 9th, calling for "a wintry mix of freezing rain and sleet." Of course, this is preferable to "a summery mix of freezing rain and sleet," which would simply be odd; "a wintry mix of 22 inches of snow," which would be redux of the largest snowfall in New York City that occurred ealier this winter (and would be something of a oxymoron); or "a wintry mix of fire and brimstone" which would be a downright biblical. I wonder if there is anything particularly wintry about the mix of freezing rain and sleet which we in Dutchess county will be experiencing tomorrow. Is it wintry simply by virtue of it's occurring in winter? Is there a specific ratio or a range of ratios of freezing rain to sleet which qualifies a mix as "wintry?" Of course, maybe the folks at the National Weather Service were getting a little weary of their lifeless, coldly rational take on the weather and were trying to spice up their prose a bit. I shall see if there are any similarly strange and obvious descriptions of weather in future warnings.