The Weather Outside is Frightful

Mighty cold

Finally, it has arrived -- the blast of cold weather we've been reading, hearing, and thinking about for the last week. The wind is howling through the trees, and the thermometer on the porch says +5°F. By morning, it will be zero.

Of course, the cold temperatures in southern Kentucky are nothing much, compared to states north of us. Some of our rain and sleet was "flash-frozen" on our roads when the cold air arrived tonight, but we didn't get enough snow to cover the ground. I'm thankful.

Yesterday was a mild sunny day. The sky was blue until sunset when a low gray bank of clouds appeared on the western horizon. It was the sort of day that once might have lured a pioneer into hitching up his team and setting off on a long trip to town for supplies. We've all heard the sad stories of people who perished in winter storms that appeared from nowhere. Now we have an entire weather industry that keeps us warned about dangerous weather we might not otherwise anticipate.

About 3:00 pm yesterday, one of my ears suddenly began to ache. I didn't recognize that as a weather omen but Keely (my personal scientist) pointed out that the barometric pressure was dropping rapidly, and my somewhat stuffy head probably wasn't equalized yet. I think she was right. Six hours later, the earache was gone.

My father's cattle must have been good at reading the weather signs. When a winter storm was near, they always gathered at the windbreaks closest to the buildings. Remembering them makes me worry about the livestock and other animals that are outside in this weather, and the people who are working outside doing important, necessary things that are made very difficult by the cold.

I'm also a little worried about the electricity which has blinked six times tonight so far. Wind gusts are blowing something against the wires and creating a short circuit somewhere, I suspect. We have plenty of flashlight batteries and lamp oil, but I hope we don't need them. Pennyrile Electric posted on Facebook a few minutes ago that they have power outages affecting over 1200 members.

Earlier today, a Sunday School song (Psalms 118:24) came to mind: "This is the day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." I am glad tonight, most of all for warmth and shelter. And, while it's a little hard to rejoice, I do respect and honor the Creator who put the mighty forces of nature in place and set them in motion.

Too Wet for Planting

Rainy, cool spring in Christian County, KY

We've had a difficult spring in Christian County, Kentucky. We hate to complain about rain, knowing how badly they need it in other areas, but it's so wet here that our farmers can't get the crops planted. The water puddles in this field near my home are typical for the area. Small lakes have formed in some fields that have pronounced low spots. The farmers who have managed to get their machinery in the fields and their seed in the ground are reporting mixed results. Some seed has failed to sprout, and some seedlings have been stunted or killed in water puddles.

The Sandy Moon

A historic October moon

The nearly-full moon was shining like a headlight in the sky a couple of nights ago when I took this picture. It's completely full and even brighter tonight.

The full moon in October is the "Hunter's Moon", or the "Dying Grass Moon," or the "Travel Moon", according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. Those are good-enough names, but East Coast residents will remember it as the "Hurricane Sandy Moon."

Hurricane Sandy with its rain and wind and storm surge couldn't have happened at a worse phase of the moon. Because the moon is full, the high tide came in farther today than it will at any other time during the month. This combination of natural forces is filling the subways of New York City with water tonight and flooding Long Island, Staten Island, and Manhattan.

If you'd like to check on the hurricane in the New York City area without commentary from a news reporter, here are some webcam links that were posted by Natasha Lennard to a hurricane liveblog at Salon.com:

• New York Harbor, http://www.nyharborwebcam.com/
• From the Lady Liberty's viewpoint, looking on to Downtown Manhattan, http://earthcam.com/usa/newyork/statueofliberty/
• Coney Island, http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/coneyisland/
• The Jersey Shore (Point Pleasant), http://www.nj.com/shore/pointpleasantcam/
• Virginia Beach Boardwalk, http://www.vbbound.com/webcam/hampton-inn-virginia-beach/

The webcams won't work if their electricity is off. When I tested these links, I got mixed results.

Signs of a Hard Winter

Persimmon seeds, wooly worms, and such

One of my daughter's supervisors at work is a fruit and nut grower as well as a veterinarian. Keely tells me that he has been reading the persimmon seeds lately -- that is, cutting the seeds in half and looking at the shape of the divider between the two parts of the kernel. He says that this year, the persimmon seeds have knives in them. That means that this winter will be cold and icy, with cutting winds, according to Kentucky folklore.

If the persimmon seeds had forks inside them, that would foretell a mild winter, and if they had spoons, we should expect a lot of snow to shovel. (Or so it is said.)

Supposedly, nature gives various warnings of a bad winter. Have you noticed any of these lately?

• Ant hills built extra high
• Squirrels gathering nuts early
• Squirrels burying their nuts extra deep
• Squirrels building their nests low in the trees
• Unusually bushy squirrel tails
• The north side of a beaver dam more covered with sticks than the south side.
• Hoot owls calling night after night
• Wide black bands on the woolly worms
• Solid black woolly worms
• Cattle digging the ground and facing north day after day
• Hickory nuts with heavy shells
• Pine cones opening earlier than usual
• Tough apple skins
• Thick onion skins

I'm hoping for a somewhat harder winter than we had last year. I hope we get enough rain and snow to replenish the water table, and I hope we have at least one good cold snap to kill some of the insects and bacteria. I don't want any ice storms, though. I hope the knives in the persimmon seeds are right about the cold but wrong about the ice!

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If you liked this list, you might also enjoy Weather Lore: A Collection of Proverbs, Sayings, and Rules Concerning the Weather by Richard Inwards, a past president of the Royal Meteorological Society. published in London, 1898. It contains weather wisdoms from around the world, including the United States.  

A Hurricane Memory

Medieval night with Hurricane Rita

Tonight, the very muggy weather and the threat of Hurricane Isaac is giving me déjà vu. I've never experienced the full force of a hurricane firsthand. But I did have a surreal secondhand hurricane experience, one humid night in southern Tennessee that comes to mind tonight

Keely was still in college in September 2005, and she was a member of  SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), a medieval reenactment group. Her group was attending a reenactment near Columbia, Tennessee, so Isaac and I went along. We arrived late on Friday night in torrential rain, and decided to sleep in a motel instead of setting up our tent in the downpour.

On Saturday, the sun was shining. We drove out to the site, found Keely's group, set up our tent, put on our medieval garb, and had a very hot, humid day of medieval entertainment and activity.  That night, we enjoyed a nice medieval meal with several courses. That ended the official activities, so Isaac and I wandered back to our tent and settled in for the night.

Hurricane Rita, September, 2005

It was still very humid as we lay down to sleep. There was a reason for all that humidity: Hurricane Rita was hitting the Gulf Coast that night. But steamy or not, the weather was friendly in our curious camp in the woods. At midnight, dozens of people in medieval clothing were still gathered around the embers of bonfires, talking and laughing and enjoying homemade wine and mead.

I couldn't sleep, so I turned on my little radio and put on my headset. The emergency broadcast of a Mississippi radio station was coming in clearly, and I listened to it for the rest of the night. Tornadoes, high water, toppled trees, downed electric lines, impassable roads, emergency vehicles-- I participated in a long, dangerous night on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, as I tossed and turned and dozed in my tent. The hurricane in my ears that night was the closest thing to a real hurricane that I've ever experienced.

At daylight, the radio waves became faint, and static overrode the voices.  I turned off my radio and got up from my air mattress, tired and sticky. The camp was quiet at last, except for the twitter of birds and a few loud snores.

We packed our tent and headed back to Kentucky. Somewhere between Columbia and Nashville, we stopped at a Waffle House and had an exceptionally good breakfast. I mentioned that Waffle House breakfast to Isaac a few weeks ago and he remembers it, too.

Oh yeah, definitely surreal.

I do not mean to speak lightly of the dangerous, very real hurricane that people faced that night. As I remember the terrible storm I heard described on the radio, my thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the path of Hurricane Isaac. Please be careful.

Related:
Hurricane Ike in Christian County, KY

The Easter Blizzard of 1873

Deadly April snowstorm on the prairie

I found this account of the terrible Easter Blizzard of 1873 in a history of Seward County, Nebraska that was published in 1920. This account is part of a longer passage that was reprinted from W. W. Cox's earlier history of Seward County.

Seward County in Nebraska

I have edited Mr. Cox's prose a little, breaking the very long paragraphs-- and in some cases, the very long sentences-- to make them easier to read. In doing this, I changed some words and punctuation. Please see the original if you want to quote something from this account.

Nebraska in the United States

The spring of 1873 was very pleasant, and people had made gardens. Prospects were so fair for an early summer that the ordinary straw stables for stock had been neglected and permitted to become open, the sides having been blown away. In fact, all precatution and care for the protection of man and beast from the cold blasts of a winter storm had been forgotten.

On the tenth of April, a rain commenced to fall, the wind blowing mildly from the south-east, both continuing until the night of the twelfth. The clouds, thickening at times, were accompanied by lightning and thunder.

We were living in our twelve foot pioneer residence with two windows. On that memorable night of the twelfth of April, we were awakened by an unusual roaring of the wind. Glancing at the windows, we thought the moon was shining, but soon recalled the fact that there was no moon.

We got up and opened the door, and were almost instantly made aware of the source from which the disturbance and the light in the windows came. The wind had veered to the north-west and seemed to have the force of a cyclone, and the air was so full of snow as to produce a moonlight appearance.

In fact, the most terrifying blizzard we had ever witnessed was before our drowsey eyes in all the horrors that could be depicted. We did not tarry long to enjoy the panarama as the ruling elements seemed to suggest that we retire and shut the door.

This blizzard continued three days and nights without abatement for an instant. The doleful tones, ever present in our ears during that time, scarcely left us even when in the refreshing embrace of slumber.

And there was scarcely a minute during the seventy-two hours that an object of any dimension could be discerned ten steps distant. Two minutes exposure to the full force of the storm would cause the vacant places in a person's clothing to fill full of the celebrated (but not appreciated) "beautiful snow."

Several of our neighbors saved their cows, horses, and mules by taking them into their houses. We saved three out of four small hogs and about thirty hens by dividing our twelve-foot space with them. We did not bring these animals in until the second day, and one of the hogs died in fifteen minutes, after being brought in.

Charles Emerson, living is a sod house on a hill in L precinct, kept his horses in a dugout stable at the foot of the hill, perhaps six or eight rods from his house. The storm was so blinding and severe that he did not venture to go and attend to them during the three days.

After the storm abated, his heart almost failed him when he went to his stable and opened the door that he had carelessly left only half-closed. He found the interior packed full of snow and not the least sign that his faithful horses were alive.

He secured a shovel, and after digging a while, came upon the horses, both standing up. The snow had filled in so close around them that they could not lay down. The warmth of their bodies melted the snow sufficiently to give them breathing room, and both were alive.

This terrible storm raged during the 13th, 14th, and 15th of April, the latter being Easter Sunday, and would justly pass to history as the greatest Easter storm on record.

Source: Pages 24-26, General History of Seward County, Nebraska, by John Henry Waterman. Published in 1920 in Beaver Crossing, Seward County, Nebraska.

Other histories tell of blizzard winds that tore the roofs off flimsy homesteader shacks, exposing the occupants to the elements. Other settlers froze to death because they didn't have enough firewood on hand. Some lost their way between house and barn and wandered off into the blizzard. Others were caught traveling or hunting on the prairies and either froze to death or smothered under the snow. Thousands of livestock died, and a great deal of wildlife perished as well. 

After the storm, snowdrifts were fifteen and twenty feet tall.  Some settlers who lived in dugouts had to burrow through deep snowdrifts.  Hilltops were swept bare, but the draws were full of deep, hard-packed snow. The best of the spring grass, which the surviving livestock really needed, was buried under the snow for a long time afterward. Many bodies of both man and beast were not found until the snowdrifts finally melted.

Read more:
Text of a Nebraska historical marker for the Easter Blizzard of 1873
Out of Old Nebraska: April Blizzard of 1873
The Easter Storm of 1873
Google Books search for "Easter Storm of 1873"

Wet and Dry

Flood and drought in the heartland

Mississippi River near Cairo, Illinois Bridge over the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois

The last week of July, I drove to southwestern Missouri to get together with my brother and sister at my sister's house. It was great to see them, and I also enjoyed the road trip.

I crossed the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. It was obvious that the fields along the approaches to the bridge were planted very late due to the spring floods. On the Missouri side of the Mississippi River, I saw more evidence of flooded fields and late crops. Farms in the area were flooded last spring when the Corps of Engineers broke a levee on the Mississippi to ease the flooding in Cairo.

Most of the fields had young, broad-leafed plants growing in them. First, I thought that the little plants were probably soybeans. Then I wondered if they might be cotton, because southeast Missouri grows quite a bit of cotton. There are short-season cottons that will mature before frost, even when planted late. Whatever the crop, I'm glad some farmers in the river bottoms may get a harvest this year, despite all.
.

Hay trucks on Highway 60

NOAA image

As I drove west on Highway 60, I followed two trucks loaded with big hay bales for miles. They were probably going somewhere in the drought-stricken plains farther west, where people don't have enough grass to feed their livestock. If only their pastures could have some of the water that flooded the fields along the Mississippi this spring!

It was very dry north of Springfield, Missouri, where Charlotte (my sister) lives. My brother Dwight, who has a ranch southwest of Wichita, Kansas, says it is terribly dry there, too. He usually rents a couple of pastures to another fellow every summer, but when last winter and spring were so dry, he decided to sacrifice the extra income and keep all his summer pasture for his own cattle. He hasn't had to buy any hay yet.

Near Charlotte's house on the night that I arrived, a farmer was mowing the dried-up, stunted, mostly-dead corn plants in his field. A couple days later, he baled the stalks for cattle feed. The drought-stressed cornstalks may be high in nitrates, so the farmer will need to have the cornstalks tested so he doesn't accidentally poison his cattle. The cows won't think that cornstalk "hay" is very good, but they'll eat it if they're hungry enough. 

This longhorn cow still has grass in her pasture near Charlotte's house. It has become hay on the stem, but that's much better than no grass at all!

Droughts and floods are problems for all of us, not just for farmers. These disruptions impact grocery store prices, affecting everyone who buys food. Please, pray for rain for those farmers and ranchers who need it -- and sunshine for those who don't need rain!

Muddy Fields

The rains recede.

I don't have a rain gauge at present, so I can't provide a personal report on how much it rained at my house during the recent storms. Instead, I'll report the rainfall measured by the Christian County Wx Operations Center for Hopkinsville, KY:

• 4.41 inches last week
• 3.39 inches during the first three days of this week

My sense is that we had at least that much rain where I live and possibly more, especially over the last few days. The ground is saturated, and pools of water are standing in unexpected places. Mud is everywhere, and everywhere is mud. Farmers are at a standstill with spring planting, and the soil has to dry up before I can get in my garden, too.

Near Pilot Rock Road in Christian County, KY, this afternoon.

UPDATE: On the Hoptown Hall,  a Christian County farmer who lives east of Pembroke, KY, is reporting 13 inches of rainfall since the beginning of the recent storms. Another forum contributor who lives in northeast Christian County reports 5 inches of rain this week.

Thunderstorms and Tornadoes

Wild weather in western Kentucky

Tonight, I'm listening to WHOP, the Hopkinsville news radio station. They've been broadcasting non-stop severe weather coverage for several hours. The uninterrupted broadcast is an indication of the serious danger posed by the storms that are moving across our area.

Just a few minutes ago, 2-1/4" hail was reported in northwestern Christian County --and then golf-ball-size hail in Hopkins County. Now they are reporting a tornado on the ground near Morton's Gap in southern Hopkins County, near the intersection of the Pennyrile Parkway and the Western Kentucky Parkway.

Hurricane-force winds in Murray

Tonight's weather is just another episode in a series that began several days ago. Last night, high winds passed through Murray in Calloway County (KY). Gusts up to 100 mph were measured. Today, classes were cancelled at Murray State University (where our son Isaac is a student), due to the power outage and the many fallen trees on the roads and streets. I heard on the news that hundreds of trees are down in Calloway County.

Isaac sent me a link to a set of photos from Murray State News showing some of the damage on and around campus. He said that some cars on the campus parking lots had broken windows, perhaps from wind-borne debris or perhaps simply from the wind force. His car was OK.

My fast trip to Clarksville

I left work at 3:30 PM yesterday, with plans to run an errand in Clarksville. A raincloud was approaching, so I hurried to the gas station and then headed south out of town on the (new) Pennyrile Parkway.

In that short time, the raincloud became a huge black mass that was rapidly filling the sky. I turned on the radio, and to my dismay, I learned that I was driving right into a tornado warning for Fort Campbell and southern Christian County. A car with flashing red lights was stopped on the shoulder of the road, and two weather observers were watching the storm cloud. I thought about returning to Hopkinsville and going into a store, but I couldn't find a place to turn around. So I drove fast and managed to get southeast of the storm before it hit the Parkway. (This is not a safe thing to try!)

The storm was in Todd County when I took this photo.

I photographed the storm cloud from the mall parking lot in Clarksville. The storm was already in Todd County by then. When I drove through Todd County on my way home half an hour later, the storm was threatening Morgantown in the next county northeast.

This storm cloud produced a possible tornado near the Bradshaw road as it passed through southern Christian County. Some farm buildings in the area were damaged and trees were blown down.

UPDATE: Aircraft and facilities of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) at Fort Campbell were also damaged by storm winds. The extent of the damage was not included in the news release, but there were no injuries. I do not know if that damage was caused by the storm cloud I was racing or by another of the several storms that tracked across the area later that evening.

And it's raining.

During the last few minutes, heavy rain has begun again at our house. The ground is already saturated. Like most of western Kentucky, Christian County has a flash flood warning. Residents of Hopkinsville's low-lying areas are watching the Little River fearfully. Stormwater utility workers have been removing log jams from the river as they occur, to keep it flowing as freely as possible.

According to WHOP's website, "Christian County Emergency Management Director Randy Graham says the Storm Prediction Center is forecasting another seven inches of rain for Christian County before the week is done..."

The good news is that the cold front behind the severe weather will finally arrive sometime tomorrow. The temperature tomorrow night is supposed to be in the 40s. We are thankful that we haven't had any major damage so far in this series of storms. I hope that you have not suffered injury or property damage either!

The storm left Todd County before I got there.

This storm hit Dawson Springs this afternoon.

Related:
"Four Rivers Region Emergency Recovery Updates"

Bad Storm in Christian County, KY

High winds, heavy rain

A bad storm passed through Christian County (KY) today. We had several hours of high winds and heavy rain. A factory between Hopkinsville and Pembroke was badly damaged (apparently by a tornado), and farmers in the adjacent area reported damage to buildings. Residents of Pembroke and Lacy in Christian County also had storm damage, including a tree that fell on a mobile home.

I heard on the radio that 180 workers were in the TGASK building when it was hit. Seven people were injured badly enough that they went to the hospital, but no one was in serious condition. The wind took off part of the front of the building, ripped off the roof, and blew through the back of the building, according to the radio report. Debris was scattered for a wide area.

Along the highway in front of the plant, half-a-dozen or more wooden electrical poles were snapped in half, and several steel poles were bent double. Electrical wires were on the ground, causing power outages in the Pembroke area.

I was at work while all this was taking place. Except for the weather, it was a very boring morning because we had almost no customers.

Squall after squall rolled over us. At one point, big waves of water were scooting across the parking lot like whitecaps on a lake.  The electricity went out for about a minute, then flickered several more times. I suppose that was when the tornado hit TGASK.

When Dennis got home from work, he called to tell me that everything at our house was OK.  No big tree limbs had fallen, our animals were all safe, and the electricity was still working. That was good news.

More about the storms in this region:

• Middle Tennessee Lashed by Strong Storms
• Hopkinsville Factory Damaged and Workers Injured When Possible Tornado Hits Building
• Possible Tornado Touches Down Leaving Damage Near Pembroke Road
• Heavy Winds Damage Factory Building 
• Hoptown Hall thread about the storm

Naughty or Nice? March Can't Decide!

Volatile spring weather

When I got off work yesterday and headed for home, a black cloud was hanging over Hopkinsville (KY). I turned on the radio and learned that we had a tornado watch and a severe thunderstorm warning. A storm front, capable of 70 mph winds, was passing through eastern Christian County.

The bright sunlight against the dark storm cloud was eerie. I held my camera out of the car window and clicked this photo of Skyline Drive. Its angle is strange, but it expresses the instability of the weather at that moment.

Later, I read on Hopkinsville's weather report that one-inch hail was reported east/southeast of Kelly (a few miles north/northeast of Hopkinsville.)

A lot of people were wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts earlier this week, but today they had on their sweatshirts and jackets again. The low tonight is supposed to be around 30 degrees.

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Update 3/26/11
Today at work, I talked to a fellow who is building a house on the Kelly-Dogwood Road. He said that he was in town when the cloud went through, but when he went out to the construction site later, he found full-size sheets of plywood in the treetops.

Winter, Continued

Spring has not sprung -- yet.

The view from our side porch, about 7 AM Thursday

This photo of our snowy landscape is for the folks who live far away and wonder what's happening in Christian County. If you live here, you should ignore this post! You already know that it snowed again and again this week. (Yes, two significant snows.)

The schools were in session for most of Monday, and that was the only day of school for the week. The school buses had a little trouble on the slick roads, Monday afternoon,. According to the Kentucky New Era, a bus went off Highway 800, somewhere near Crofton.  A Christian County Schools spokesperson reported about a half-dozen other minor accidents. No one was hurt.

I've been pondering why our buses have trouble in ice and snow when, in some states, the school buses travel in ice and snow without incident, day after day. Part of the problem surely is that our drivers aren't experienced with such conditions. But some of the problem, I think, is the roads our buses travel. Even in good weather, narrow, winding, hilly backroads are challenging for a big vehicle. Taking a bus on those roads when they are slick with ice and snow is just asking for trouble.

In central Kansas where my brother lives, many of the rural roads are straight as an arrow. From the air, they must look like lines on a piece of graph paper.  In Christian County, our backroads are like the C. W. McCall song, "Wolf Creek Pass".

Well, from there on down, it just wasn't real purdy:
It was hairpin county and switchback city.
One of 'em looked like a can full'a worms;
Another one looked like malaria germs...

I'm exaggerating, but only to make my point.

I am so ready for spring. Next week, we are supposed to have much warmer temperatures -- in the low 60s on a couple of days. If we have a few days like that, the daffodils will start blooming.

About 2 PM on Weds. as I drove home from work

Late Light on a Wet Day

Uneasy skies

In Hopkinsville, late yesterday afternoon, the sun pierced the clouds and spotlighted the elevators. After a dark, wet day, the sudden light was dazzling.  Half an hour later, the sun slipped below a dark bank of clouds. Darkness came quickly.

The blizzard is passing north of us. Here, we are supposed to get rain, high winds, and colder temperatures. We have a wind advisory until 3 PM today. Wind gusts may reach 40 mph.

I am worried about friends and family who live in areas that are feeling the storm's full force. Despite the weather, some people have to work outside -- the farmers and ranchers have to feed their livestock, for example. I hope the travelers all got off the roads and found refuge.

In my mind, I just heard my mother say that I should pray for people, instead of worrying!

Is the storm passing through your area? Please tell us about it.

A Snowball Dodged

Light snowfall in Christian County, KY

Christian County, KY, 1/12/11

The first snowstorm went south of us, and the second snowstorm went north. After several days of weather advisories in Christian County, KY, we don't even have enough snow to cover the grass.

Nonetheless, our schools were closed on Monday and Tuesday. In the early hours of those days, snow was falling and the rural roads were slick. Road conditions were judged unsafe for school buses.

Christian County and our neighbor to the west, Trigg County, along with Montgomery County, TN, just across the state line, were back in school today.

My supervisor at work said her children were disgusted when they looked at the school closings map on television this morning. Nearly every school district in western Tennessee and Kentucky cancelled classes again -- except Christian, Trigg, and Montgomery.

I don't think the Mennonite children in our neighborhood have missed a day yet at their little school. They didn't even take a vacation between Christmas and New Year's Day.

White Christmas

Snowy Christmases, past and present

We had a white Christmas in Christian County this year. The snow started about 6:00 pm on Christmas Eve and continued intermittently throughout Christmas Day. This photo was taken in late afternoon on the day after Christmas.

Keely, Taurus, and their friend Adam spent Christmas Day with us. After they left that evening, I swept several inches of snow off my car so it would be ready to drive in the morning. A couple more inches of snow fell during the night, and when I went out to start my car the next morning, I had to sweep it off again.

My kids have a favorite family story about one of the few Christmas snows in their childhood. We went to church on Christmas morning that year. By the time church was over, several inches of snow covered the ground. We were surprised! We didn't know that snow was in the forecast!

I was driving, and I had no problems until I turned off the highway to the little gravel lane that leads uphill to our house.  I made it about halfway up the long,  hill before the car started to slide. When I let up on the gas, I lost momentum and came to a stop.

Dennis got out and pushed the car. That wasn't successful, so he decided to drive while I pushed. I got behind the car and gave it all my muscle while Dennis stepped on the gas aggressively. When he got the car moving, he roared up the hill, leaving me to walk home. The kids didn't know whether to laugh or cry about leaving Mom behind, but I understood. If he had stopped, we'd have gained nothing.

Several days before Christmas in 2004, we had the closest thing to a blizzard that I've seen in Kentucky --  seven or eight inches of snow with strong wind and very cold temperatures. Dennis was in Kuwait that Christmas with AAFES (the PX system, from which he has now retired), so he missed out on that storm.

We always heat with wood, but normally, we have a thermostat-controlled propane heater that turns on when needed. During that storm, we had only wood heat. We had bought a new propane heater a few days earlier. After the installer disconnected the old heater, he realized that he didn't have everything he needed to connect the new heater.

That night, while I was shoving firewood into the stove and listening to the wind howl, I thought about Laura Ingalls Wilder's blizzard story in On the Banks of Plum Creek. Pa and Ma had gone to town, leaving Laura and Mary at home with little Carrie. When the blizzard hit, Laura knew that it was important to have lots of firewood inside. Otherwise, people had to burn their furniture to keep from freezing. With fear-driven energy, Laura and Mary hauled the entire woodpile inside their little cabin, finishing just as their parents arrived home.

Isaac's longtime friend DJ was home from Oregon that Christmas, and he was visiting us on the night of the snowstorm. The next morning, the storm had ended, and it was clear, cold, and still. Isaac and DJ bundled up and went out with the sleds.

I didn't know that they were sledding down the hills on the highway until they got back home! "We'd have heard any cars coming!" they assured me with the wisdom of 15-year-olds. I felt a little better when they told me that there were only two sets of tire tracks on the highway.

A day or two later, the snow was still on the ground and the roads were still bad. Keely got a ride home from Murray on Christmas Eve with her friend Kyla who had a Jeep.  A tall fellow named Taurus crawled out of the Jeep with Keely and spent that Christmas with us. He's been here for every Christmas since then, and in October of 2010, he became our son-in-law.

I hope you've enjoyed your Christmas, white or otherwise. And if it's snowy where you are, stay warm and be careful!

Rainy Day

November weather

A Cold Snap Approaches

A hard year for gardeners and farmers

November skies

I took this photo on my way home from work this afternoon. As the cloud cover breaks up, temperatures are falling. We are expecting a hard frost here in western Kentucky tomorrow night. The forecast says that the highs tomorrow will be in the upper 40s and the lows tomorrow night will be in the mid-20s. Brrrrr!

It will probably be cold enough tonight to finish off the New Guinea impatiens. They are such dedicated bloomers; they are still loaded with dozens of flowers even though they've gone through several nights that were colder than they really like. The pansies and marigolds are hardier. They should make it through tonight OK, and I will cover them tomorrow night.

A lady at work today told me that she still has tomatoes on the vine in her garden. Obviously, she has been watering her garden faithfully for months. I and a lot of other people gave up on our poor gardens a long time ago.

We've had a number of field fires in Christian County this fall due to the very dry conditions. Even though we had some rain a week or two ago, we had "Fire Weather" warnings again last week. The current weather system brought light showers as it moved in, but it was just enough rainfall to settle the dust until the sun comes back out.

At the polls last Tuesday, a neighbor told us that he has been feeding hay to his little herd of cattle for more than three months already, due to the drought. He didn't get much hay from his own fields, so he has been buying it. He'll have to buy hay all winter. He said that it takes the joy out of farming. (He meant that this year's calf crop probably won't pay this year's hay bill.)

And so another growing season is coming to its end. In the Pennyrile region of Kentucky, it's been a difficult year for farmers and gardeners. When the winter rains finally begin, it will be a good thing.

This fire in late October burned 130 acres near
Dawson Springs Rd. north of Hopkinsville. It
was finally extinguished through joint efforts
of 50-60 firefighters from 8 volunteer fire departments
and about 75 migrant workers from nearby farms.
Agri-Chem and the Garnett Farm helped haul water and
loaned their machinery. Smoke was visible for miles.

Tornado near Pembroke

Weather service confirms twister

The National Weather Service at Paducah has sent out investigators, and they've verified that a tornado also struck just south of Pembroke on Tuesday. (See "High Winds in Hopkinsville," Oct. 26, 2010, for more about the dangerous storm that passed through our area.)

The tornado passed a mile or so south of the Pembroke Elementary School. A staff member told me that the children spent much of that morning in "crouch and cover" position in the hallways.

Damage survey revealed EF0 tornado 2.5 miles south of Pembroke... from just north of Anderson Rd to near the Junction of Hwy 1453 and US Hwy 41. Peak wind estimated at 70 mph. Path length 2 miles intermittent. Path width 50 yards. Tree and several large tree limbs down. Tin damage to a couple of barns. (Source: National Weather Service, as reported on Weather Underground)

WKDZ reports a tornado near Central City in Muhlenberg County, in the path of the same storm front that spawned tornadoes in Christian County.

High Winds in Hopkinsville

Severe weather brings welcome rain.

As I drove to work this morning, the wind was blowing mightily. The unpredictable gusts nearly knocked my car off the road. A heavy mass of storm clouds (above photo) was approaching Hopkinsville from the west/southwest.

On the radio, I heard several tornado warnings for Christian County and an unconfirmed report of a tornado touchdown within Hopkinsville, near the Indian Hills shopping center. As I looked at the black cloud over Hopkinsville, I wondered whether to continue on my way to work, turn around and go home, or find shelter somewhere along the road.

I drove on to work, keeping an eye out for funnel clouds. I was going to park my car and lie in the ditch if necessary. I'm glad I didn't have to do that.

Sheets of rain were coming down, as I got out of my car. I observed the wind direction and opened my umbrella against it, thinking I could block the driving raindrops. In a split second, a swirl of wind turned my umbrella completely inside out. I tried to use its strange new shape to keep my hair dry, as I ran to the building. It didn't work very well.

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado did touch down in Hopkinsville. As tornados go, it was a mild one -- rated EF0, with winds of 80 mph. It damaged a metal building and the roof of Food Lion on Canton Pike, took part of the roof off a building in the Indian Hills area, and hit a barn on the Little River Church Road east of town (within a couple of miles of this photo!) Trees in the tornado's path were damaged and even uprooted.

A horse was killed at a farm on Bradshaw Road when a tree fell on it. This was probably not related to the tornado.

At our house, we had almost an inch of rain from the storm, and the moisture was very welcome. We've had an extended drought, here. In fact, drought disaster relief has been requested for Christian County, along with Todd, Trigg, Caldwell, and thirty-one more Kentucky counties.  Sunday afternoon, we had a slow, quiet rain, our first rain in a long, long time. We prefer rain like that -- without all the drama we had today -- but I guess we'll take whatever we get.

Ready for a Rainy Day

Corn harvest begins   

I took this photograph about a month ago. I had stopped, late in the afternoon, at a roadside vegetable stand that is operated by an old-order Mennonite family. Mama was minding the stand, while the men and boys were bringing in the hay from the fields. I felt it would be rude to photograph the lady and her little produce stand, but I did drive down the road a little way and take this picture through my car window.

I thought about the things that Mennonite family was doing that hot afternoon. The little, box-like, vegetable stand must have felt like an oven as the late afternoon sunshine poured under the awning. And the men in the field must have been sweltering, as they pitchforked the hay into the wagon. The horse was probably very hot, too.

Some very nice-looking cantaloupes and watermelons were sitting in full sun, in a wagon next to the produce stand. I figured they had been baking there all day, so I chose a cantaloupe that didn't look as ripe as most. Later that evening, I cut into it and found that it was not ripe at all. I had to throw it away! With the Mennonites and me both trying to compensate, that melon didn't get enough hot sunshine.

The thing that I notice now about this photograph is that the stubble in the field is quite green. Christian County (KY) was getting a little dry even in mid-July, but after another month of extremely hot temperatures and precious little rain, it is now very dry. Lawns, mowed fields, and grazed pastures have developed a sickly brown complexion. The trees are dropping their leaves prematurely. Today, I noticed that a neighbor's field of soybeans is wilting.

I heard on the radio that the extreme heat and the lack of rain is affecting the produce farmers too. Tomatoes are not developing the bright-red color that customers want, grapes are not as colorful as they should be, and melons are small and sunburned. That news didn't surprise me much, because I know how my garden is struggling, even with fairly regular waterings.

Tomorrow, we have a 60% chance of rain. Some of the farmers were combining corn today, trying to get it harvested before it gets wet. They want its moisture content to be as low as possible. Tonight, people were still working in one of the cornfields as I drove home at 11:00 p.m. A big combine was moving down the rows and a couple of big grain trucks were waiting to be loaded. I hope they didn't have too much more to do.

For me and everyone else who is not harvesting corn, a rainy day tomorrow would be a blessing! My garden would appreciate a real rain. The suffering soybeans and trees and our poor, brown lawns and pastures would love a good, slow soaker too.