Why does everything just seem a little less dark when it snows?
There’s actually a scientific reason for that. Snow is really great at reflecting light, so any time there is a covering of it — on the ground, on rooftops, beautifully plastered onto the branches of trees and dressing the top of cars — it serves as a large, uniform surface area for all surrounding light sources to bounce off and reflect back into the world around it. Essentially, the snow is creating a big mirror.
This phenomenon becomes especially apparent at night, where even normally dim light sources, like the moon or moody porchlights, supply enough luminescence to become supercharged by the surrounding ice crystals. We’re sure you have memories of walking around a snowy neighborhood at night after a fresh falling. The sounds are dampened (snow is also a great insulator of sound), and an almost ethereal kind of light fills the air. It’s enough to make even the most hardened New Englander feel poetic.
But in addition to creating a physical mirror for light, we think it’s also quite magical how snow holds up a kind of mirror to us and demonstrates our innate desire to be decent to one another.
Snow presents a shakeup from our usual routines. It presents an unavoidable obstacle for us to overcome. We have to prepare for it, deal with it, physically remove it from our roads, walkways, cars and porches. There’s no point arguing about snow. It’s there, and it needs to be handled.
When we see snow around our communities, we also see a lot of communal behavior. Those who are physically stronger will shovel an elderly neighbor’s sidewalk. Those with snow blowers will spare the aching backs of 10 of their neighbors by clearing their driveways in addition to their own.

After Sunday’s blanket landed, we saw neighbors helping neighbors. People out enjoying our fabulous parks – Roger Williams, City Park, Salter’s Grove, Rocky Point. Kids laughing, parents laughing, neighbors sharing the shoveling and catching up. This is what makes our communities the best.

Snow provides the opportunity for families to reconnect away from screens. Any nearby hill becomes a communal gathering spot for smiling sledders. It reaffirms the importance of our public parks and parcels of open space, even in the off season when they are less traversed.
There is no denying the uniting power of a good snowstorm. It has brought New Englanders together for centuries – out of necessity, out of camaraderie, and out of what we believe to be an innately human desire to let our inner warmth overcome the cold.

And so, as we endure a couple more months of hibernation, we hope you had enough time outside to warm your heart.