When I was a young kid still in high school in McDowell County, I would dream of snow days. However, it would never snow. During my four years at Mount View High School in Welch, I must have had all of two — maybe three at the most — snow days. It was frustrating because I could have used a day or two off from school every now and then. But for some reason it seemed like it went four years in McDowell County without snowing.

OK, I’m sure it snowed a few times during those four years — as the memory is getting a little more fuzzy with each passing year. But it didn’t snow very often. In fact, I can only remember one day — and that was because a big storm dumped nearly a foot of snow on us on April 1, April Fool’s Day. Clearly, the joke was on us that year courtesy of Old Man Winter.

But in all reality snow days were few and far in between for us Golden Knights back in the day. Where I lived, we got up bright and early at 5 a.m. or so to catch a 6:30 a.m. school bus. You also had to walk a short distance to reach the bus stop, so the extra time was important or you would miss the school bus. We had cold mornings, but hardly ever any snow.

The same problem could be said for the college years. Granted, I lived on campus at Concord College, so a snow day would not have impacted me as much as those who commuted to school. But for another four years it also seemed like it never snowed in the small town of Athens. It was actually kind of depressing. I don’t think I ever had a good snowball fight with anyone on campus because there was seemingly never any snow.

We had a hurricane — the remnants of Hurricane Hugo blew through the college campus back in 1989 — but never a good, old-fashioned snowstorm.

I do remember one morning at Concord College when a decent snowstorm did fall — I was in class and watched it falling through a window. However, by noon the same day, the temperature climbed well above freezing, and all of the snow melted. Again, it was a little depressing.

Today, most folks across the region can only dream of a winter without snow. And I suspect some parents — and school kids alike — are getting tired of all of the snow days.

Students in Mercer County have missed 18 days of school so far this year, and those in Tazewell County have missed 14. That’s a lot of lost instructional time in West Virginia, and a lot of instructional hours that will be tagged onto the end of the school year in Virginia. If my math is correct, the school year in Tazewell County has now been extended until at least June 13. That’s well into summer. I’m sure a lot of kids would prefer to be off and enjoying summer vacation at that time, as opposed to being stuck in the classroom thanks to all of the snow days they accumulated back in December, January and February.

We spent a lot of time here in the newsroom last week talking about the weather. It was the biggest story of the week after all. After many in the newsroom began to speculate as to what March would bring, I decided to pose the question directly to a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, Va.

I didn’t like the response he gave me. I was told that long-term projections are showing a continuing trend of cold air and snow all the way through the end of February and possibly well into the first part of March. That’s not exactly the kind of news folks wanted to hear. Forecaster Dave Wert even told me that March would be “volatile” with the potential for more significant storms. Whether those storms are white or wet remains to be seen.

Neither would be particularly good. Snow in March is never fun. Remember the Greater Blizzard of 1993? It happened in March. With snowfall totals in Bluefield exceeding well over 60 inches so far this season, the last thing we need is more snow, and more big snow storms in March.

However, if all of the snow that is out there right now doesn’t start melting soon, we’ll be taking all of this snow with us into March. And believe it or not, spring will arrive one day (keep your fingers crossed). Things could get really messy when the warm weather hits if all of this snow and frozen sleet, in particular, is still on the ground. That could be a prescription for a major flooding disaster.

The best thing we can hope for at this point is no more snow, and slightly warmer temperatures that will allow for a slow melting of all of the mess outside. But it doesn’t look like Old Man Winter is going to cooperate with us at this point.

All I’m seeing in the extended forecast is more snow, and more cold temperatures. This is getting really old already.

Charles Owens is the Daily Telegraph’s city editor. Contact him at cowens@bdtonline.com.