It seems like Tulsa has these themed winters or something. The winters aren’t the same year after year; it’s like each winter the weather finds its own pattern, and does the same stuff over and over again. Each winter is its own barrel of fun. Yeah, right.
We went through a couple of winters a few years ago where the theme must have been “Warm, Windy, and Drought-like”. The main dangers were grassfires and being over-dressed. Almost no snow. Lots of people lost trees due to not enough rain.
Last year, the theme was “Almost Like Michigan, Only Further South and Not Quite As Much Snow.” Lots of cold, cold temperatures (well, for Tulsa, anyway). And lots of snow events–especially on weekends when people were trying to go to church. Our driveway took a real beating last winter. We were really ready for spring when it happened.
This year’s theme seems to be “Ice. Freezing Rain. Freezing Drizzle. Anything Frozen Other Than Snow.”
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Tulsa saw an ice storm of catastrophic, landscape-altering proportions. Over a half million people lost power statewide, and many of our oldest and best trees were ruined. Limbs everywhere. Some places still look like war zones, while we wait for tree limbs stacked as high as houses to be removed from our roadsides. (Feeling sorry for us yet?)
Since then, almost every precipitation event this winter has included some form of frozen precipitation other than snow. Freezing rain, drizzle, ice fog. No repeats of the wicked ice storm yet, but just enough to make the roads slick and the people irritated. Oh, and between events it gets warm enough for shirt sleeves, just long enough so you can’t get used to the cold. Almost no snow so far this winter.
The forecast this week? Today and tomorrow, shirt-sleeve weather. Wednesday…ice.
Crap, crap, crap.
Wayward Son
Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo.
I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
View all posts by Wayward Son →
Same up here in Jacksonville, IL. Being from California until a few years ago – I’m still in shock. Our 2nd big pile of tree limbs (trunks!) was just hauled away 2 weeks ago from our December ice storm. What fun!