If you live in a climate that gets cold in the winter as I do, then you are familiar with the winter ritual of “scraping” the car. This ceremonial removal of ice from the windows may be a joy to some is a huge pain in the rear. I have been noticing this winter that there are several different types of frost that may show up on the windows of my car depending on the weather and type of precipitation we have received. I have also realized that anyone who has spent a reasonable amount of time scraping frost from their vehicle’s windows quickly becomes and expert at sizing up each variety of frost and the quickest and most effective method of removal. Here are my observations on the different frost categories:

1. Category One: Easy Scrapage – This is the most preferrable type of frost as it comes off cleanly with minimal effort. If you are a patient type of person then simply allowing your car ample time to warm up will do a sufficient job.

2. Category Two: Snow – Ok, this isn’t frost, but it can be a nice surprise to just hop in your car and turn on the windshield wipers for quick removal. You will see many people driving on a day like this with a snow-covered rear windshield, shunning any possible danger and waiting for their rear defrost or driving on the freeway to work it’s magic.

3. Category Three: Chemical Bonding – There are mornings that make those of us dwelling in the great white north threaten to relocate to a warmer climate and these are the days that produce the kind of frost that seems to chemically bond with the glass of our windshield and requires a blowtorch to remove. Again, a patient person might allow their car a good 15 minutes of “warm up” time and then spend a few minutes and successfully scrape off the remaining frost. But if you are like me, you don’t think that far ahead and find yourself packing your toddler out to the car with all your required accessories, turning on the car and praying for a quick scrape so you can get to the function that you are late for and then swearing as you apply enough force to crack your windshield to scrape off ice that is only 1 milimeter thick. This always seems to happen on extremely cold mornings when you just want to get out of the wind and into your slightly less frigid car.

4. Category Four: Freezing Rain – There is, of course, a lovely phenomenon in our climate called “Freezing Rain”. This happens when the temperature hovers just around or below zero degrees celsius and results in a genuinely thick layer of ice all over your car. Unless you work in a profession requiring super-human strength or you are part super-hero there is nothing to be done about this type of frost but wait for it to melt from the pathetically slow and only moderately warm air blowing from your car’s vents. Many a citizen of this fair town has wasted time and energy attempting to crack, chip or otherwise damage this ice and we all end up defeated and shivering in our car. All of us except those who take a sledgehammer to their windshield and end up with bigger problems than a little ice.

5. Category Five: Interior/Exterior – I have observed a different kind of frost this year that in my previous experience is not particularly common to this area. We have had an unseasonably warm winter with weather hovering around minus 10 at nights. I am not a scientifically minded person so I can’t explain why this happens, but it seems that something about this milder weather in the days and slightly cooler weather at night results in one layer of frost on the exterior of the windshield of the Category One variety and another layer on the insterior of the windshield. The problem with this interior layer is that one often doesn’t notice it until you have thoroughly scraped the outside of your car, and, being pleased with your swift removal job, have climbed back into the vehicle only to discover another layer of frost. You have several options when it comes to this interior layer. You can scrape a bit on the inside and cover the inside of your vehicle with little snowflakes that kind of defeat the point of being inside the vehicle and make everything wet as they melt. You can, as usual, wait patiently for your defrost function to work its magic. My preferred option is to just start driving as soon as your windshield has defrosted about 2 inches from the base of the glass. You have to drive in a somewhat “hunched over” position but once this layer starts to thaw it disappears quite quickly. Unfortunately, it leaves a layer of water droplets all over the glass that are also annoying because you can’t wipe them away. You can try to dry them off with your gloved or mittened hand but that usually results in a smudged window that is very hard to see through. The best course of action is to wait for the droplets to dry, which of course, takes infinitely longer than it should.

Well, having typed all this out I am now thoroughly depressed and wishing I lived somewhere warmer! And they wonder why people leave Saskatchewan!