WINTER in NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

 

 WINTER

A word that meant water and wet or cold and wet.

In German the word is wintar.

In Danish and Swedish, vinter, or vetr, “the wet season.”

Old Norse Vetrardag, first day of winter, was the Saturday that fell between Oct. 10 and 16.

No doubt in the Norse lands Vintar arrives early.

 

In New England, winter means snow and rain.

In the south, winter is a time for tourists.

In the Midwest, winter means snow. Wet cold snow.

In the Mountain West, winter is deep show. Powder.

Winter along the Pacific coast means rain.

Cold rain. Endless rain. Bleak depressing rain.

I think we Californians living on or near the northern coast.

Need a new name for our type of winter.

A Season we could call Coldrain. 

Perhaps, “Wetcoldrain,” or simply.

"Calrain"

 

Old English winter (plural wintru), “the fourth and coldest season of the year, winter,” from Proto-Germanic *wintruz “winter” (source also of Old Frisian, Dutch winter, Old Saxon, Old High German wintar, German winter, Danish and Swedish vinter, Gothic wintrus, Old Norse vetr “winter”), probably literally “the wet season,” from PIE *wend-, nasalized form of root *wed- (1) “water; wet”). On another old guess, cognate with Gaulish vindo-, Old Irish find “white.” The usual PIE word is *gheim-.

As an adjective in Old English. The Anglo-Saxons counted years in “winters,” as in Old English anwintre “one-year-old. yearling;” and wintercearig, which might mean either “winter-sad” or “sad with years.”