New Balance has never been shy about embracing their local roots. While many aspects of New Balance’s Boston home make for easily digestible interpretation, New Balance’s latest Boston centric offering takes on a feature of New England life that is prominent, but not especially beloved, the Nor’easter.
In technical terms, a Nor’easter is easy enough to define: a cyclone that forms in response to the low pressure created by the convergence of warm ocean currents travelling up from the Gulf stream and cold air travelling down from Canada. The Nor’easter name comes from the strong, northeast winds that characterize this low-pressure system.
Of course, to residents, the meteorology 101 terminology doesn’t begin to do justice to the actual experience of a Nor’easter, mostly because the explanations about wind force and precipitation are purely technical. The frenzied supermarket crowds clamoring for milk and bread, the obligatory but inane, “it’s really coming down out there” observations, the wind that makes it difficult to draw any breath, the iced over sidewalks and slush puddles that lurk at every street corner are aspects of the Nor’easter experience that have to be lived through to be fully grasped.
New Balance’s take on the Nor’easter outfits the classic 998 in an aquatic palette, complete with water droplet graphics. It’s a Nor’easter that you won’t mind seeing in the forecast.
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