Here’s what too many people across snow-deprived regions are thinking right now: Oh, isn’t this “winter” just great!?! We’ve, like, totally dodged a bullet, man!This drives me up the wall. I want my winter. I want to be shot with a few biting, walloping bullets of Arctic fury. I want the lunar calm and stillness that settles after a sizable snowfall. Sure, a few cities are slowly picking up their first legit accumulations of snow, but by and large this balmly, mild spell is upsetting the natural rhythms of life. I don’t know about you, but I simply cannot appreciate the Dog Days if Old Man Winter hasn’t first hung around and glowered at me for a while.Maybe this is just me being an icy-veined native Chicagoan. But c’mon, is there anything worse than 50-degree weather when it should be frigid? When it’s not Hoth where and when it should be, everything is dead, brown and gray. Already oppressive urban architecture just seems that much more smoke-stackey and drab and depressing when not blanketed with the white stuff. And what are you even supposed to wear? Nothing feels right. Because if you’re poor, like me, you’ve got clothing for extremes, and nothing more. Walking around in a pea coat seems sorta silly when it’s 50 degrees. But that windbreaker won’t cut it, either.So pick a side, Nature. Either be cold and blustery and otherwise perfect for staying in and droning to this on loop until April, or be over 70 degrees. Don’t give me this ’tweener business.Meanwhile, Alaska is getting pummeled. I mean, straight up buried. Some of the Final Frontier is under 15+ feet of snow, and counting. Fuel is running low, leaving some residents no choice but to start throwing furniture into the fire just to stay warm. The good ship Healy, a U.S. Coast Guard ice-breaker, has for the last week been ramming a path for a Russian oil tanker hauling 1.3 million gallons of oil to Nome, a cut-off town in western Alaska. It’s been a painfully slow trek that should end sometime today, all thanks to a surveillance drone that’s been relaying images of ice back to researchers who’ve been plotting an optimal route for the emergency caravan.But hey, for the rest of us it’s still only mid-January. Should we ever start picking up some inches we’ll have to embark on that yearly ritual of clearing away the stuff. Below are a few options you may want to look into. None of these have the Motherboard Test Labs stamp of approval yet (we’re open to reviewing your product), but nevertheless seem like they’d get the job done.For all the purists out there, check out Garant’s Poly Sleight shovel. The town of Cordova, Alaska, just ordered 75 Sleight shovels, so you know this thing can get it done. Oh yah, hey ’dare.For more industrial-sized snow clearing operations, slap a Horst Snow Wing to the front of your ride. This thing runs on hydraulic rotary actuators that allow you to adjust individual blades to the task at hand. Snow removal has never seemed more bionic.Clearing highways? Consider the TowPlow. This unit is an all-in-one built for plowing and salting multiple lanes simultaneously. Efficiency, baby, efficiency. I guess this is sort of the Leatherman of snow removal.Plow the line with authority.Dear God, look at this thing. Now we’re talking. Manufactured by Norway’s Øveraasen, this puppy runs on 2,000 horsepower and can clear in excess of 10,000 tons of snow per hour. I want to cruise around in this monster blasting Viking metal.Reach this writer at brian@motherboard.tv. @TheBAnderson
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