Atlanta Snow Day 2025: A Retrospective
I've lived in Atlanta, and the surrounding area, for about half my life at this point. That's weird to think about. That's much longer than I expected to stay here, honestly, but I'm glad I have. After all, if I hadn't stuck around, I wouldn't have found the job of my dreams, nor would I have met all my amazing friends and my wonderful partner, Noah. Living here has shaped me in many ways, and it’s certainly shaped my writing career. Most of my stories take place in Georgia, whether that’s explicitly stated or not.
And as someone who's lived in Georgia for entirely too long, I'm familiar with how my state usually handles snow. In summation: not well.
I was there for Snowpocalypse 2012. On that day, I left for work a few hours early, only to get stuck in traffic from multiple schools that decided to let their students out at roughly the same time. It took me six hours just to turn around and go back home. If I could've done it differently, when I stopped - about 3 or 4 hours in - at a gas station a mile away from home, I would've left my car there and just walked. But because I was young and broke and didn't want my car to get towed, I simply stopped in to use the bathroom and grab snacks before getting back out on the road for another few hours.
I was there for Snowmageddon 2014 as well, although I remember it less vividly. I do remember essentially being trapped at my parents' house for 3 days and getting stir crazy, but luckily, I was able to avoid the hours of traffic that year. Others weren't so lucky. The YouTube channel weatherbox made a video covering Snowmageddon last year that breaks the situation down really well, meteorologically. That’s right, my storm phobia has evolved: I’m a weather nerd now.
So when meteorologists predicted snow on Friday, January 10th, 2025, Georgia didn't mess around. I received 3 public safety alerts while driving to therapy on Thursday. On Friday, my office closed, as did most offices and schools. My boyfriend works overnight, and we usually hang out on weekends, so I invited him to come over as early as he could so that he could avoid driving on ice. I set an alarm for 6:30 AM, partly so that I would be awake to let Noah in, but partly because the snow was forecast to start as early as 6 AM and I wanted to see it.
When the first snowflakes started to fall, I was there, waiting in excitement. Soon enough, big ol' chunks started to come down, making the world blurry. I gazed up at the sky in awe, stomped around the hill in front of my condo, and encouraged Noah to hurry up. He'd made one last trip to the grocery store and apparently people's cars were already slipping and sliding as he made his way over to see me.
When he arrived at my complex, he found me outside already, enraptured. I wrote in the snow that accumulated on my car and on his, I marveled at how shiny the snow was, and I took entirely too many pictures and videos.
The picture speaks for itself, really.
Then, I had to work. Luckily, it was both a WFH day and a half day, so I was able to get some things done from my own couch before it was time to go back out into the snow in the afternoon. By that point, the snowfall had turned to a "wintry mix", or a mixture of rain and ice falling from the sky.
Noah and I are both into hiking, him more than me, so we were undeterred and ever prepared. We wrapped ourselves up in warm clothes and took our hiking sticks outside with us just in case. I directed him over to the area of my neighborhood that's the most woodsy-looking and we had a photoshoot.
Pondering those orbs (snowballs)
We made a little snowman. Not wanting to trudge all the way back to my condo and grab garments, we simply decorated him with sticks from the ground. Noah rolled up a massive, leafy snowball while I sang the Katamari Damacy theme song. We threw (much smaller) snowballs at each other. I made one snow angel there and one back at the complex. We took turns drawing a picture on the road with our hiking sticks.
:D
Because I was so excited about the snow, and because we were doing so many fun activities, I felt like a kid again. I was straight up giddy the entire time.
As my state was adequately prepared for the snowfall, I don't think anything bad even happened. I didn't hear about any traffic pileups. My power flickered (and my condenser unit was making these weird shrieking noises in the middle of the night, which I resolved by chipping the ice off the top and hitting the unit a few times with my hiking sticks) but I didn't hear anything about mass power outages. From what I heard and experienced, my area got about 3 inches of snow without adverse effects. So, in other words…
Georgia Snow Day 2025 was the perfect snow day.
The weekend that followed was the perfect snow weekend. The ice cleared off all the roads as early as Saturday, in part because workers had gone out and salted them all, but in part because the sun came out and it got just warm enough to melt most of it.
On Saturday morning, Noah and I read together in bed, which was peak cozy. We prepared food and ate snacks and talked. We took another walk, came home, watched Netflix, and snacked some more.
On Sunday, I noticed the snow was still sticking to hills but melting even more in lower zones and roads until it had all but faded away. Noah and I were able to drive over to Waffle House (I mean, Waffle Stop) to get breakfast and do yoga with cats. I did my grocery shopping for the week and snuck out for yet another walk through the snow that afternoon. I had fallen in love with the sound of my footsteps crunching in the snow.
I'll always remember Georgia Snow Day 2025 fondly. In fact, I miss it already. I've been reliving it by watching people's TikToks and reading people's social media posts about it. They've all been wholesome, a historical document picturing adults, kids, and even pets having the time of their lives playing in the snow.
Because it rarely snows here, winter weather is something we treasure. I think that's beautiful.
Thanks for reading this far. I haven't been blogging lately because I've been experiencing writer's block, existential dread, health anxiety, and other shit. It's good to be back, though.
Your friend,
Janvier Olszon
P.S.
I’m going to be doing my first ever book signing event at The Crazy Book Lady in Acworth on February 8th from 12-4! If you’re local (or, shit, even if you’re not) come listen to me yap about my books.
Also, I have Bluesky now and I plan to transition to using it more than Facebook and Instagram, so feel free to follow me over there for updates, etc.!