The headline the day before I got fired read: ‘El Nino manifests as a warming on the surface of the ocean and will be four degrees Celsius above normal, causing the strongest El Nino in history.' I read it twice. Normal was .5. As I sat in my breakfast nook enjoying my Florida orange juice, I contemplated the end of snow.

No more early morning Egg McMuffin, static hair through turtlenecks, drive in darkness to Banff. No more lineups for the chair lift, breath like fog hanging, white-topped evergreens and hot chocolate with Peppermint Schnapps in the silver flask. No more ice crystals on eyelashes when you face plant off a too big jump. No more blue run, green and black run with names of pricey subdivisions, or knee-busting moguls carved by hill groomers. No more shovelling until sweat rolls down your back to soak the waistband of your purple long johns. No more mother-knit toques with rainbow tassels, or standard issue black balaclavas fit for a bank job or minus 40 commutes. No more maple syrup poured onto snow to make taffy you shouldn't eat with your new crown. No more sleigh rides sitting uncomfortably on hay bales under itchy blankets that smell of barn stalls.

The end of snow came on a Wednesday as I dressed for work in my suit and rubber boots. In March, if it rained at night you knew that come morning the roads would be a mess of accidents, cancelled buses and closed schools and by night the city would be a slushy puddle of late C-trains and ruined leather shoes. You'd look forward to the smell, not the plump worms in dirt musk akin to decay, but the slate wiped clean, fresh out of the dryer blanket that muffled sound.

As I headed for my car, Breast Cancer Awareness pink snowbrush in hand, I knew with the clarity of non-existent ice on my windshield that I would spend the 100th day in a row looking into the camera with the blue screen behind me devoid of cartoon clouds puking white flakes onto Calgary like some college kid after too many spiked Mountain Dew Slurpees. Larry, the station manager with the bald eagle beaked nose, would point at his lips willing me to smile anyway.

Instead, I delivered the weather with the cheer of an alcoholic department store Santa who knew his days were numbered unless he could deliver what viewers wanted – a snow day off to drink green beer instead of work like every other St. Patrick's Day.

My mouth twitched, but not into a smile, words building behind my teeth like a cough.‘El Nino used to mean Snowmageddon. But, the oceans have soaked up one-quarter of the greenhouse gases emitted by humans and it's raising the temperature of the water and changing our weather. Four flipping degrees people."

That's when Larry dragged me off like a hare in his talons. A stunned hare that would never change colour again from brown to white.