Spring Fever

Normally I really love each of the four seasons we have here in Oklahoma.  Each one brings its own beauty but also its own unique weather problems. 

Spring is beautiful around here.  The trees begin to bud and flower, daffodils and tulips poke through the brown grass to bring forth bright and wonderful color.  The winter wheat, which has been green all winter, begins to thicken and grow tall.  The occasional spring snowfall really only adds to the beauty of it all.  The birds are beginning to sing.  March has come in like a lion and out like a lamb.  This saying is so true here in Oklahoma.  But on occasion, the lion returns.  Thunderstorms and tornadoes are quite common.  We are in tornado alley after all.  If it weren't for the destruction that they bring, their sheer power would be awe inspiring.  I have to say though, I love a good thunderstorm.  The booming thunder, the beautiful lightning, even the hail, as long as my garden isn't already in.

 
Summers here can be wet or dry, more often than not it's the latter of the two. There is still a danger of supercell thunderstorms and they can be brutally hot.  So hot that the water at the lake feels like bathwater and isn't the least bit refreshing.  When it does rain then you have the humidity. Days so hot and humid, walking out onto your front porch gets you soaked with perspiration. Lots of bad hair days.  If it's a dry summer, wildfires are a constant danger. With winds that "come sweeping down the plains", and grass that has dried to a crisp, they are very hard to handle. If it's a wet summer, then the fire danger is usually put off until...

...autumn. In this part of Oklahoma we don't have the great changing leaves that eastern Oklahoma enjoys, but it's better than the dried up plains of western Oklahoma. Like all of our weather, fall has many faces. It can easily be in the upper 80's to low 90's into October. I've harvested tomatoes, peppers and okra, all hot weather plants, through the middle of October.I could have even longer, but I usually decide I've had enough and finally pull up the plants. It can also snow like crazy. My daughter was born November 5, 1991. That Halloween saw one of its worst snow storms in southern Kansas where she was born and Oklahoma got an ice storm. And like I mentioned before, if it's been a wet summer that makes for a lot of tinder to catch fire in the typically dry fall.

Finally there's winter. For the most part, winters are pretty mild with average highs in the 40's in January, our coldest month. December 24, 2009, brought Oklahoma City its greatest one day snow total since records have been kept. In two days we are expecting a storm that may be worse. Not that we are expecting that much snow necessarily, but we are expecting from 5-15 inches. What is worse is that we could be getting a significant amount of ice earlier in the day. One good thing with this storm is that the temperatures are not supposed to stay as cold as they did with the last storm for nearly as long. We went almost three weeks at below normal temperatures, many of those days it never got above freezing. We like to joke that if we get less than four inches of snow, it will be gone the next day because it will probably be 70 degrees. And it can do just that.

Will Rogers, an Okie, said, "If you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, stick around a minute, it will change."
He was so right!

Like I said, I love all our season, but I really am ready for spring. More about that later!