AKA – ‘The Mother of all Storms’! Hopefully, this will be
the final installment of the mini blog series that absolutely no one is
truthfully destined to read! Today is Monday, February the 13th and the much advertized
winter storm is… here? Or is it? After all the hype, I’m not sure what to call
this endpoint of a story! Let me start back earlier in the pre-dawn hours when my
inability to sleep allowed me to catch the first change of guard.
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[12:00 Midnight] - Unable to sleep in all the excitement, I
got up briefly at midnight to check my Davis
weather station. Same-o same-o for the last few hours in terms of readings;
temperature at 35F, winds 1-2 mph from the southeast and a very dry atmosphere
with a relative humidity of 30%! Surprisingly, the weather service in Springfield has decided
to perform maintenance on their radar at this juncture. Sure! Why not! Nothing
important going on here boys!
The latest weather guidance (guesswork) from the NWS, as far
as the forecast went, was to say that the appearance of any snow down here in
the Branson Missouri area may not show until sometime after 6AM! Seems that old
atmosphere is really very dry and like an old alcoholic, it will take some time
to get it properly saturated. So, even at this early hour of the 13th, perhaps the
seeds of forecasting failure have
been sown! Boy! What a surprise to see this group strike out yet again....
well, back to sleep.
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[3:15 AM] - The outside temperature has begun to move
downwards once again with a reading of 33.9F at 3:25 AM. Winds that had been
out of the southeast were also not out of the south now, but south southwest
and picking up a little at 4-5 mph. The humidity was also on the rise now at
53%. As the radar indicated moisture overhead, I think things were beginning to
happen. By 3:30 AM the temperature was now at 33.6F with the RH at 56%. Rapidly
now, it was apparent the outside was getting colder! By 3:36 AM it now read
32.8F. Hmmm, lying there in bed, I began to suspect something was up! I got up
– looked outside - and sure enough a light
snow was now falling. (You weather people are all summarily forgiven)!
As I watched the flakes fall into the dark night, I
theorized that the snow was also melting as it neared the surface and entered
warmer air. This process (heat of fusion) then causes a rapid cooling of the
air just above the surface of the ground which results in any additional snow
now making it all the way down. That would account for the rapid transition
from relatively warm air to below freezing air in such short order (35F to 32F
in twenty minutes). Note: The actual freezing point (32F) was achieved, by the
way, at 3:47 AM at least according to my instruments.
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[7:00 AM] - Time to rise and shine! OK, maybe I'll settle
for just getting up. Man o man, its day four! I thought to myself. And, after
witnessing the snow begin to fall during the overnight period; I knew that I
was really in for it now! Need I remind you, it has been an ARCTIC INVASION,
and today I would be chronicling the MOTHER OF ALL STORMS. Heady stuff that.
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After falling out of bed, I wandered over to the window and
shot a picture which was made into this ‘before and after’ photo. Pretty hairy
scene, no? Just look at how all that snow has almost covered the road surfaces!
What ya think? We got maybe an inch out there? Some one go find my sled! Glad I
won't have to get out in it... or will I? Being the adventurous sort of man I
am, perhaps I felt I owed it to my (one) readership to crank up the old Jeep
and go brave those elements! Sighing and with that thought in mind, I reached
around to scratch my behind while heading for the kitchen. Ah, another day, another bowl of cereal, I thought while mentally
gearing up for the challenges ahead.
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As it turned out, just writing this post turned out to be
the hardest challenge. As the morning wore on, the mercury stayed pretty much
stuck at 29F while outside a very ‘pretty snowfall’ took place. It was the kind
of day you would wish occurred on say December the 24th! You know,
sleigh bells and snow to help get everyone in the mood to open gifts and drink
too much eggnog. But, seeing as it was the middle of February (which has absolutely
nothing going for it) I found those swirling flakes a bit flakey. And, for
those of my friends who actually work for a living, this crap may have held off
just long enough to possibly get them stuck at work. ‘Uh, Frank, since you’re stuck here for a bit, would you mind getting
that TPS report done and on my desk?’ See? Depressing and flakey, all at
the same time!
Epilog
I always wanted to do a story that had an epilog. So, I
guess this is my chance. First off, I never actually set foot outside. The snow
keep falling to the point where there was close to two inches on the ground. I
felt this extreme amount to be UNSAFE for me to travel in (even though I have a
four wheel drive vehicle).
As the day wore on into night, the snow finally let up and I
went to bed. The end!
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