The Warming

In other years or in other places it might be called the January thaw, but here, this year we didn't quite get that warm. It did get into the +20s F in the afternoon and the winds, unlike a couple "warm" days back in December were light and not creating a low windchill. It was a time to be outside or make a trip WITHOUT temps and/or windchills in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and even 50s below zero.

I went out to rake some snow off the roof and finish off some shovelling. My wife and daughters chipped away at the compacted snow on the driveway. The snow had be dropped and blown by a series of Alberta clippers and driven over because of the small amount and the discomfort of removing it as it fell. The cars got washed. I went sledding with the girls at Mickelson Field. It was nice. The streets improved as the salt was able to melt the ice and street crews bladed some of the streets.

The north wind returned the other night and dawn is again greated by -20 F temps. The setting sun is replaced by Venus blazing high in the sky while Jupiter has left the sky following its dance with the crescent moon and the waxing Venus a couple months ago. I await Mars to rejoin the nighttime sky after hiding behind the sun at Christmastime. The sun itself is less of a stranger, now setting after 5:00 PM, yet the vernal equinox is still two months away. The Dog Star barks at me as I walk from my office to my car at night.

My holiday homestand is drawing to a close as Monday I head back to Moline for the week. The trips will be less frequent as the pulse of business slows in 2009, but some of my extra time at home is spent planning a western journey with the family next summer to see amazing sights...mountains and geysers and possibly sand dunes and lava flows and inland seas.

A Reason We Have Kids in North Dakota

Digging out after the December 2008 blizzard.

Our front door was drifted shut.

Blizzard Play

Playing outside at the tail end of the first blizzard of the winter of 2008-09.

Record Monthly Snowfall in Fargo

A new record for snowfall in any month was set in December 2008 at 33.5 inches.

Previous December record was 29.2 inches set in 1927.

Previous month record was January 1989 with 31.5 inches. That included a 24 inch snowfall one weekend which is a record itself. That snowstorm is also memorable in that it seemed better to walk to my girlfriend's (now wife) apartment than to drive. We watched a movie on VHS with a few friends and then I walked home. It was about a mile each way.

The snow is pretty piled up, but we still have a ways to go before I can sit on the roof of our house with my feet on the top of a pile as I did in March 1997. However, much of our driveway is now lined with snow piles 3-4 feet high. If we get a blizzard like we had in the middle of December, this will drift in, making for a significant shoveling experience. In our earlier blizzard, there weren't any piles to speak of and the snow just blew across the driveway.