In Oklahoma we don't get very much snow as a rule. Not like you'd get in say, Wisconsin, Montana, North Dakota or places where a great quantity of snow falls each winter season. Indeed, our southern latitude makes more for the liquid variety of winter precipitation than frozen due to the warmer temperatures. Thus, we are relatively unprepared for a huge winter storm in which the word "blizzard" is used.
Until yesterday, that is.
Tuesday, February 2, 2011 will be a historic day for weather in Tulsa. It was a day that saw a record snowfall in the city limits...some 14 inches at the airport, (about 10-12 here at the Lohman HQ), to a whopping 21 inches in Owasso, the northernmost city in Tulsa County. All of the area schools closed, most of them before a flake hit the ground on Monday. The storm paralyzed public transit, shutting the bus system down and it caused the local paper to shut down completely for the first time in 106 years. Life has ground to a halt in the American Heartland where it normally doesn't happen.
In short, this storm was a big @#$!-ng deal.
The pictures I am posting with this blog are that of my front porch. If I were to stand in the snow, the drift there would reach my knee. As a rule I am in awe of Oklahoma weather but ordinarily it's the hair-curling storms we have in the springtime and NOT winter storms. As I write, the temperature is being announced at a whopping 8 degrees and we are under a "wind chill advisory", which basically means that it's windy and it's cold, but not cold enough to merit an actual warning, which is currently in effect for the counties north of here. I'm not sure about the differences between the two, but it propbably doesn't matter.
It is going to take at least 3 weeks for this stuff to melt away, realistically. In past yeasr we'd get 3-5 inches and it would paralyze us for a few days and it would warm up and melt. IF the forecast holds we will be above freezing on Saturday, which will put the temperature at a scorching 40 degrees. Still, it's going to take several days above freezing to get rid of all this stuff. That sucks because one thing I havent; mastered since my amputation surgery is walking on snow and ice and as a bonus, the buses are shut down so I am effectively immobilized.
So what was once something that I thought was sent from heaven when I was in school now sucks a big one because, while a snow day back then meant we went a day longer at the end of the school year now when I stay home, it costs money.
In the end, we will eventually thaw and life will get back to normal. Until them we'll hunker down and endure. It's what we do. Hopefully, this isn't a calling card for an active spring season because if so, you'll be reading a blog about that in about 3 months.
Winter sucks.
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