I’ve written about the Children’s Blizzard today, but decided to put it into Reprint because of the focus on history.
I’m very glad that the blizzard we had over the weekend did not kill 250-500 people.
Historical Snowstorms and Blizzards
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Tag Archives: weather
Glorious Weather
You know you’re a Minnesotan/North Dakotan when you roll your windows down ’cause it hit 35.
Of course, this weekend it was a great deal warmer than that, and pretty much everybody rolled their windows down, or wore short sleeves. Even those with thinner skin dispensed with their coats.
It’s been great weather for moving.
So naturally I slacked the whole weekend and moved a bare three carloads of stuff across town to my new apartment. On one hand, slow and steady wins the race, and I have generally ambled in the direction of moving more stuff over there. After the first trip with just one carload, my… well, my everything hurt.
And if I were keeping a swear jar, I’d probably have enough money to retire by now, between hitting various bits of my anatomy on various sharp and/or hard objects, dropping things, and dropping various sharp and/or hard objects on various bits of my anatomy.
But after four trips, spread across several days, I’m only a bit stiff.
This is an especially good thing because my wonderful coworker is going to help me move a couple of the larger objects this evening after work.
You know, the larger objects, like the table that weighs more than 17.3 Indian elephants, and the TV stand that I have about as much chance of moving with the power of positive thinking as I do with the power of my flabtastic arms. I think my end tables are made of rocks, or possibly anvils.
The Wind Has a Message
I generally keep chocolate around in case of an emergency, and today I opened up the foil on a fortune chocolate. That’s what I call those little individually-wrapped bite-sized portions of chocolate that have little sayings on the insides of their wrappers.
“The wind tells a story, listen.”
Only I live in the Midwest. Although we’ve successfully rehabilitated our wind to be used for energy and also, in some cases, windsurfing, it has a long history of being downright mean, and vindictive.
I suspect any message the wind has for me to end with the phrase “sleeps with the fishes,” frankly.
The Hail With It
Friday’s rainstorm prompted interesting scanner chatter, but it also left me with a minor dilemma, as I was uncertain how to describe for my story the bits of hail that fell on Jamestown.
The hailstones were smaller than peas, and I was struggling to find a good way to illustrate their size. Sub-pea-sized? Tinyhail? Nerds candy-sized hail? Airsoft ammo?
I was advised to see what The Internet had to say, and quickly found this handy National Weather Service hail size comparison chart.
BBs! Bam!
But reading the rest of the chart also proved instructive. Do people really compare hail to hockey pucks and eggs? That must be some pretty weirdly-shaped hail.
And then there are the delicious comparisons to candy, including the Milk Dud-sized hail. Mmm.
How would you describe hail?
Rainstorm Strikes Jamestown
During the rainstorm Friday, I sat in the warm, cozy newsroom while the Sun’s assistant editor went out in the pouring rain and got some awesome photos.
I still feel kinda bad about this, but I did manage to take some interesting notes on what was going on with the help of the newsroom’s police scanner. Now, do please note that everything on the scanner is tentative–sometimes people report things that turn out to be inaccurate, and law enforcement sorts it all out later for the official report, getting all the facts hammered down.
During Friday’s storm, some of the scanner chatter was impressive, either comical or commiserating. A lot of commiserating, actually. We all know the last thing we need is more water.
Here’s a partial transcript of some (not all) of the scanner chatter from Friday afternoon. I’m putting direct quotes in quotation marks; the rest are paraphrases, and my notes are in color.
3:28 People stalled out in the water will just have to wait until the water subsides to be taken out. The cops were getting quite a few calls about stalled vehicles. People apparently tried to drive through the water on the streets and stalled out.
3:31 “They got the tree off the wire and are contacting the street department.” 1,000 people were without power as a result of the branch, but it was back on in something like 20-30 minutes.
3:33 There’s a report of a truck pulling boys on an inner tube down the street…
No sight of them when law enforcement arrived at the scene. Do I have to explain why this is an unwise thing to do, or are you all too busy building home nuclear reactors and eating sauerkraut jello to do it anyway?
3.35 There’s a report of a tornado touchdown in northeast Stutsman County.
The tornado report actually came from a radio station–someone called the radio station to report a tornado touchdown and the radio station called the National Weather Service. Then the NWS reported it.
The NWS would really prefer to be called first so it can get the official word out–the number in North Dakota is 800 247 0212.
3:39 “See if you can find any damage 10 miles south of Courtenay. We have a report that there was a tornado that touched down.”
Reply: “It’s raining so hard through there you can’t see anything…”
3:40 “Are you saying we’ve got one in the area or that it’s dissipated?” “We don’t have any further information on that.” Who reported it? A brief discussion ensues here. “Reported by the National Weather Service.”
3:42 “I see a waterfall in the ditch?” Visibility was terrible.
4 p.m. “We’ll see if I get struck by lightning.” A brief discussion ensues about whether cars can be hit by lightning and under what circumstances it happens. “… If it can happen, it’ll happen to me.”
4 p.m. “What was this called a million years ago? Lake Agassiz?” Someone paid attention to his earth science class!
4:01 Upon investigation, law enforcement officials can’t find any damage from the alleged tornado touchdown ten miles south of Courtenay. “If there was a touchdown it was in a remote area…”
4:02 “So much for drying up a little bit!”
A New Name for the Heat Wave-Streak-Bubble-Dome
I keep referring to the heat wave as a “heat wave,” but it’s really more of a heat bubble. That’s how the National Weather Service meteorologist described it to me.
Since then, though, I’ve heard it referred to by other names. (All of them have been safe to say in front of children. Most of the descriptors for those names haven’t been, though.)
- In this AP story, it’s a “dome” and a “pressure cooker.”
- Here it’s a “heat wave.”
- And here, they’re “stretches.”
- This headline calls it a “scorcher” and a person in the article calls it a “streak.”
I propose to make a noun out of a verb and call it a “wilt.”
How does that sound?
Spring, Spring, Spring!
Spring spring spring
At last, spring has begun in earnest — the season of life, love, and baseball.
Less romantically, it’s also the season of mud.
Early spring in Minnesota is wonderful for those of us who live here and are just sick of looking at snow, but it’s not so impressive for people from other states, who look around and wonder how we can stand all the mud and still-dead grass.
At this time of year, we Minnesotans love the gloppy ground and brown, stunted grass. If nothing else, there’s novelty in it. We haven’t seen the ground for months, remember? Anything is better than snow.
All that’s left is snirt now, that disgusting, black-encrusted mound of filthy ice-snow that refuses to melt until King Arthur returns and the Twins win the World Series.
Snirt is the last hold-out of winter, the winter equivalent of the tactless guy that sticks around long after the party is over when you’d really like to start putting the Chex Mix away. You’d like to tell snirt to get lost or take a shovel to it, but you’re just too polite, and it’s easier to just wait it out anyway.
And then there’s the fun of seeing what the melting snow reveals.
Do you remember that toy your child cried over for three days? The pair of sunglasses you thought you left at church? Or maybe even your car keys or wallet?
Everything is buried in a snowbank somewhere, it seems, and now that spring is here, it is becoming unburied. I half expect Jimmy Hoffa or Judge Joseph Crater to wander out of the yard, looking confused and wondering where the time went.
Pretty soon flowers will start blooming, and even people from far afield will recognize the merit of Minnesota mud.
Let it be a monument to the fallen snirt.
Rainy Days and Storms
I’ve never been so glad to hear a rainstorm and see lightning flashing.
By the time March comes around, we’re all eager for spring.
We crow gleefully about any robins who happen to hop by, even if they’re shivering with a rime of frost on their beaks. We look at the piles of snirt (snow dirt) on our lawns and make private bets with ourselves as to when the last nubbin of ice will finally die.
We await the day when we will be able to complain about the muddy glop our front yard has become, and how our children or family members track mud in everywhere. We try to figure out how to keep our basements dry, which is kind of like trying to figure out perpetual motion or cold fusion, only less likely to actually occur.
Of course, spring doesn’t spring up everywhere equally. Our unfortunate brethren to the north are supposed to get a whopping 19 inches of snow today, and we have a 30 percent chance of precipitation here in Worthington, though our precipitation is supposed to be “rain and snow.†I’m holding out hope for the rain.
At the same time, there are communities around who aren’t so glad the snow is melting, and they’re probably more than a little worried about the rain, too. Floods have struck a few communities already, and Valentine’s Day kicked off sandbagging season in Fargo, N.D.
Closer to home, the Des Moines River is expected to crest at 15.4 feet in Jackson, well into the moderate flood stage, early Thursday morning.
There are plenty of other trouble spots, too, according to the National Weather Service, where streams and rivers are either already at flood stages or nearing them — Pipestone Creek in Pipestone, Split Rock Creek below Jasper, the Rock River at Luverne and at Rock Rapids, Iowa, the Des Moines River at Windom and the Little Sioux River near Milford, Iowa.
Suddenly a damp basement doesn’t seem so bad, does it?
Seven Things to Do During the Tropical Heat Wave
It can’t last.
We are Midwesterners, and we know this lovely heat wave that has temporarily turned our chilly tundra into a tropical paradise, with temperatures in the 30s and maybe even low 40s, can’t possibly last. It’s only mid-February, and we have the rest of this month and all of March to get through before we can really hope to experience spring-like conditions.
It can’t last. We all know this.
So if you’re like me, you’ve been taking advantage of the soaring temperatures and sunny skies and doing things Midwesterners do when the temperatures get into the mid-30s.
- Go outside without having a life-or-death reason.
- Roll the window down when you’re driving around in town, just for the fresh air. Fresh air which doesn’t cause actual pain when you inhale it.
- Skip the socks. It’s a little daring, and it’s probably still a little too damp out for sandals, but socks are optional when your skin would no longer instantaneously freeze just by being exposed to the air.
- Wash the car. It’s kind of a novelty now, because you probably haven’t been able to do it for a month or so. Apparently my car was supposed to be black all along; I thought it was supposed to be kind of a dusty gray. Oops.
- Walk around without mittens, scarves, ear muffs, hats and the hunched-over expression of suffering we all wear throughout January.
- Remember why we live here. There are very few earthquakes, almost no hurricanes and the snow is actually very attractive. No, seriously. Remember how we felt about it in November?
- Stand outdoors watching the snow melt and gloat. You can even try mocking it. “You pathetic excuse for snow, you thought you could conquer my spirits? Fool! I am Minnesotan/Iowan (circle whichever applies)! We are tough! You are pitiful and weak beneath the rays of the mighty sun! Hahaha!”
Temperature Up, Windows Down
My Californian friends will be appalled to learn that yesterday’s high temperature here in Worthington was -1. It’s a sad, sad day when your high temp is a negative number.
Today we seem to be getting some relief from the biting cold, though. I think it must be 20 or 25 degrees out. It’s so warm I rolled my windows down on the way home from the beauty shop to enjoy the brisk, winter air. No, seriously, this actually happened.
It’s been so darn cold here lately that 25 degrees feels like heaven.
Unfortunately, Beth just came in here and said the four-letter s-word.
So it seems we’ll be trading our prickly cold for a bit of snow, today, at least. Hopefully it doesn’t last too long.
