Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful.
And since we've no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
—"Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"
An easy way to
isolate a place. A frequent manifestation is the snow day. Sometimes this is any snow at all, sometimes you'll at least require that the roads be blocked with it. Used in a wide variety of situations:
Locked Room Mystery,
Locked In A Room (especially—duh!—
Locked In A Freezer),
A House Divided,
The Siege,
Whack A Mole,
And Then There Were None...
On a lighter note, if a couple (or
potential couple) happen to get
Snowed In together somewhere cozy, remember that
Snow Means Love... (especially if
There Is Only One Bed).
Caught In The Rain is a subtrope of this. A still lighter note may produce a
Snowball Fight. More darkly, it might result in
going mad...or
worse.
Mild
Truth In Television: in the more southern parts of both Europe and North America, a small amount of snow can bring a city to a halt, mostly out of confusion and rarity (school districts in Texas have been known to declare a snow day for less than inch of precipitation). Further north, and it takes actual serious buildup to have an effect. In some areas of Canada school
never closes for snow, and the phenomenon of a "snow day" is only known from TV and the Internet.
Rarer variations include heavy rain or similarly extreme weather conditions.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Episode 7 of Kanokon used this plot. The snow was caused by a yuki-onna (snow woman) as part of a test on Kouta and Chizuru's relationship. Also, there were semi-sentient ninja snowmen.
Comics
- There's a Disney comic where Mickey and Goofy spend a weekend in a mountain cabin, and get snowed in. Goofy panics at first, while Mickey points out that he brought along plenty of food, books, and even cards. Eventually, Mickey is driven to the edge of panic by boredom and cabin fever, and Goofy calms him down... by starting a Snowball Fight. Eventually, the two dig a hole right through the snow on the other side of the door, and realize that it was only a few inches thick.
Film
- Snow Day, one of those Nickelodeon live-action movies, had this as its central premise, complete with evil snowplow man whose goal is to plow the streets and force kids to go to school.
- So the schools would just reopen at noon, once all the roads were clear? Ok...
- His intent was to prevent the Snow Day from lasting multiple days. Because he's EVIL.
- Home Alone 3 had the villains taking advantage of a snowstorm to isolate the street.
- The ending of Look Who's Talking Too.
- Preposterously overdone in The Day After Tomorrow.
- Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush.
Literature
Live Action TV
- This troper remembers an episode of Good Eats that started with "...Three inches of snow paralyzed Atlanta."
- It was supposed to be a "documentary" episode taking place just after Thanksgiving, and the three inches of snow ended up forcing the cast inside and sending most of the production crew into a "Good Eats starved" frenzy, from which they were appeased by Thanksgiving leftovers until Emeril came by in a V-22 Osprey. I'm not making that up.
- The X-Files Season 1 episode "Ice", in which they're snowed out up in the Arctic. And while they find time for a Ship Tease, seeing as how it's The X-Files, the writers find some way to make it creepy.
- Happens in Little House On The Prairie at least once.
- The West Wing episode "Holy Night" uses this; though they aren't literally snowed in, the airports are closed due to the blizzard, preventing people from leaving. Among the people stuck at the White House are the president's therapist, Zoe Bartlett and her French boyfriend who Charlie despises, the Yale Whiffenpoofs, and Toby's estranged Jewish Mafia hitman father. Awkwardness ensues.
Music
- The song "Let It Snow!", shown at the top of the page, has a surprising amount of sexual implication for a Christmas song. "The lights are turned way down low", for example.
- "Baby, It's Cold Outside", even more so.
Newspaper Comics
- Calvin And Hobbes and similar strips/series frequently have the character wish for a snow day:
- As Calvin once said, "Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery."
Webcomics
Western Animation
- The Looney Tunes short Snow Business has Sylvester and Tweety trapped in a cabin by a blizzard.
- An episode of Hey Arnold.
- Dexters Laboratory.
- The Simpsons did this on several occasions.
- Done in an episode of South Park. Cannibalism ensued.
- The Daria episode "Antisocial Climbers".
- In one episode of Jimmy Neutron, the titular character enhanced his friend's sunscreen to create a massive snowstorm in the middle of summer. The next morning, he wakes up, expecting it to have worn off... only to find that the snow level is so high, he can barely see out of his bedroom window on the second floor.
Truth In Television
- Suffice to say, this really happens. See Troper Tales for details.
