How to make it snow in Vancouver

A Vancouver oddity...snow.

I arrived in Vancouver on a warm and rainy day in the middle of February. This was—everyone told me—an anomaly. They never get much snow in Vancouver, even in Febuary, but what with the Olympics going on and everything, the whole town is nervously aware of B.C.’s unusually warm winter.

The first Vancouverite I encountered was the cheerful young girl at the rental car counter who, when she saw my Bunyunesque frame, refused to let me take the little compact car I’d reserved. “You’ll bump your head against the roof of that thing and break your neck,” she said, taking away the keys she’d offered me a moment before. Instead, she was going to upgrade me. For free. To a bright yellow SUV with snow tires.

I said I didn’t think I needed an SUV, thank you very much, particularly since I wasn’t planning on going up to Whistler or any of the other snow venues. Besides, I told her, I’d heard that it was supposed to rain for the next week or so. She told me it was silly to listen to weather forecasts and then offered to show me how to shift the SUV into 4-wheel drive.

Convinced I’d never need this superfluous option, I paid scant attention to her instructions. Aware of my inattentiveness, she stopped her spiel, put a solicitous hand on my shoulder, and said, “Listen, dear. If you put it in 4-wheel drive, it will start snowing. Trust me.”

Well, it rained and it rained as I was driving into the city and in a way, I was glad to have my macho canary-mobile, even if I didn’t really think I’d need the all-drive option. And then a curious thing happened. As I crossed the Granville Bridge over False Creek, splotches of white paste fell from the sky. By the time I turned onto Robson Street, towards my hotel, it was a full on winter storm. The snow was heavy and wet and mostly melted the second it hit the ground. Still, it was snowing. Just like she said it would. Perhaps I should go up to Whistler.