AUBURN – Chelsea Short hates the snow.

She really, really hates it.

“If it hadn’t have been for the snow, I wouldn’t have had my car stolen,” Short said. She probably wouldn’t have gotten it back either, if it hadn’t been for the weekend’s wet, heavy storm.

“I still hate it,” Short said. “Now I have one more reason.”

Short said she headed out to baby-sit for a friend very early Saturday morning. She cleared the snow off of her car and left the engine running to warm up.

“My friend doesn’t live that far away, but there was no way I was going to walk in that stuff,” she said. The next time she looked out, her car was gone.

Police said they responded to her 250 Turner St. apartment by 2:45 a.m., took the description and filed a report. A neighbor knocked on her door about 10 hours later, wondering why she’d left her car on the side of Grove Street.

Boyfriend Renald Lefebvre said it looked like the thieves had lost control and driven into a snowbank, putting a hole into one tire.

“It was big enough to put your whole hand in,” Lefebvre said.

It took them an hour to dig the car out and another half-hour to change the tire. That appears to be the extent of the damage.

“We don’t keep anything valuable in there,” she said.

She’s learned to keep the car locked and never leave it running.

“Actually, I think I just won’t go out in the snow anymore,” she said.