Graupel in Yoder

I was hoping for a snow day today. Unfortunately, I chose to work in the school district that hasn't closed once in the last two years. Fantastic! My time spent watching the news in anticipation of our winter weather closure was not completely in vain, however. I learned a new word. It seems that this late spring snow isn't just any run of the mill precipitation. What we are experiencing here is "graupel". Graupel is a wet snow. I usually refer to it as slush, but I'm from the south. What do I know?

After a treacherous drive through the graupel this morning, I arrived to work armed with my new word and my bad attitude. I should, after all, have been curled up on my sofa watching the gentle graupel-fall out my living room window. Instead, I was forced to educate the handful of students who braved the weather and showed up at school. I probably could have accepted our graupel day fate if it hadn't been for the fact that even Yoder had a two hour delay.

Disclaimer: I honestly don't know much about Yoder except that it is on the plains halfway to Kansas and that the mere mention of its name somehow takes me to my happy place among the Amish.

Quite frankly, I had a hard time understanding how a commute through Yoder could justify a delay while I was expected to forge ahead through snow pellets and other threatening weather conditions. My only traffic advantage was the fact that the rest of the city was shut down leaving all of the District Two employees to navigate the roads alone...much like rush hour traffic in Yoder. Despite the circumstances, I arrived to school safely and determined to put my new vocabulary word to use. Unfortunately, it became evident throughout the day that "graupel" is a term known only to weathermen. And perhaps the Amish.