Nostalgia - Sno-Cone Weather - Louisiana Snow Day, Feb 2010

In South Louisiana, ice is supposed to be shaved, not falling from the sky.

Louisiana shaved ice isn’t crunchy. It isn’t crushed. It’s shaved so fine it barely holds together. Soft enough to take the sticky, sweet syrup all the way through. It melts faster than you expect, runs down the cup, stains your hands. Everyone knows you don’t get much time with it, so you eat it standing up, outside, while the heat presses in. It doesn’t last, and it isn’t supposed to.

My favorite shaved ice is a Georgia Peach with double cream. The cream has to be condensed milk. Anything else misses the point. Mr. Tom at Sunshine Snoballs makes it the same way every time. He doesn’t rush it. The ice shaved right. Almost too much syrup soaked all the way through (no white middle!) It isn’t meant to last. It’s meant to be right while it’s there.

Shaved ice exists because it’s hot here. Because it’s always hot here. Because summer doesn’t let up, and nobody here expects anything to last. You just get through it.

In winter, the average temperature in South Louisiana sits around fifty degrees. Cold enough to notice. Not cold enough

to prepare for. Most people don’t own real winter clothes. We own hoodies. Light jackets. Things meant to come off by noon. When it gets colder than usual, we stack what we have. Hoodie. Jacket. Another jacket. Gloves dug out of a car console. Scarves that don’t really help.

Unless you’re a hunter.

Hunters have winter clothes. Real ones. Insulated. Built for it. When it’s actually cold in South Louisiana, you can spot them immediately. Everyone else is either freezing or wearing fifteen layers of regular clothes. Hunters are fine. Camouflage is our closest thing to a winter uniform.

And when it snows, everything stops.

Not symbolically. Literally. Schools close. Roads empty. We wait to see if work is closed. If it's not essential, it probably is. The state shuts down because there’s no system for winter weather. No salt. No plows. No snow tires waiting in garages. We don’t pretend otherwise. Snow isn’t part of the agreement we made with this place.

So when it snowed in February of 2010, it felt like something had gone off-script.

We were living in Slaughter, Louisiana then. A place that almost never sees snow. My son was seven going on eight. Probably the first time he’d ever seen it in real life. He didn’t ask questions. He lay down and started moving his arms and legs like it was obvious what you do when snow shows up. Even though he’d only seen it in movies, he knew exactly what to do. Snow angels don’t belong to South Louisiana kids, but that day, one did.

Down the road, a shaved ice truck sat covered in white. Something built for heat, buried in cold. Not irony. Just timing. The wrong thing in the wrong season, briefly made right by the fact that it wouldn’t last.

The street went quiet, softened in a way it never is.

Slaughter, LA sits at 30.7416° north, 91.6415° west. Coordinates meant for heat, humidity, and long summers. Not snow.

But for one day, the rules bent. Those bent rules are part of the temporary magic of a snow day in South Louisiana. 

We don't handle snow because we weren't meant to. We adapt instead. We put on what we have. We stay home. We watch it fall. We make something out of it because we know better than to expect it to stay.

That’s the kind of magic that works here. Temporary. Unrepeatable. Gone almost as soon as you notice it.

Except for the photos and except for the memory of a child making a snow angel where ice is supposed to melt.

A bonus pic of the Jan 21, 2025 snow day. This my youngest son Gabriel at 7, the same age as his older bother in the snow angel photo from 2010. The other cutie pie is Gabriel's cousin, Ella. She's 4 in this pic.