Weather Memories
At this moment, giant snowflakes are being blown into my backyard from the west. But the angle of the wind combined with the shape of my backyard and height of its fence are creating a vortex. It's like watching a slow-spinning transparent tornado of snow the exact width and shape of the yard. At the back fence, it's heading east, at the glass door it's going west. I really wish I owned a video camera right now.
Most of us have weather memories. My first was walking up the hill to school in 3rd grade, turning around and seeing crepuscular rays streaming out from billowing cumulus clouds. It looked just like a painting at my Godparents' house depicting Jesus' rapture of the church. I stood there for several minutes waiting to be caught up in the air. But when nothing happened, I eventually turned around and finished the trek to school.
Then there was the time in Cheyenne I was awakened from an afternoon nap by the sound of sirens. My curiosity piqued as the proverbial cat, I walked outside rather than hide in the basement as the authorities advise. I looked up to see the sky dark with clouds looking like sharp black stucco. Directly above me was circular motion - quick and fascinating. From my vantage point, I could not see what most of the rest of the panicked city was witnessing: a large funnel cloud descending and ascending. Its evil tease was frightening enough that it made the front page of the newspaper the next morning.
There was also a day in the church office building when Pete and I watched a snowstorm advance upon us from a quarter mile away. Like a curtain of dense falling snow, the wall moved towards us at maybe 10 or 15 miles an hour. When it finally enveloped us, I knew I'd just had an unforgettable experience with a good friend.
And once in Estes Park, I remember being in a car, waiting at a stoplight as crowds of tourists assembled at each street corner waiting for their turn to cross. From over the mountain came a similar curtain, but this time it was a torrential rain. I watched it approach from half a block away. My mischievous nature delighted in the anticipation of watching it hit the first gaggle of pedestrians. When the moment arrived, I was not disappointed. They scurried like ants from the flood of a garden hose.
I've never seen the northern lights or watched 40-foot waves generated by winter storms coming into Waimea Bay. But I hope to someday.
So... what weather memories do you have?
posted by Ron Daniel @ 9:03 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
ROFL................. I can see the giggle in you as the rain approched.
:o)
N>B>L>F>Y bro
Monsoon rains in Viet Nam. It would rain so hard that that you could hardly see anything. I have always been fascinated by the weather of which God is in control of, not man.
Have a good day Ron!
Most of my memories of weather were when I was a child. I really only have one good memory as an adult. Rick Heath & I just finshed a 14x32 redwood deck on the front of our house on Desmet Dr. I remember Matt, Amber & Megan were climbing all over the railing while Beth & I sat on the porch swing holding Aleczander. It was a warm day with a slight breeze. Yeah, rare in Cheyenne.
When we were kids in the 70's it would snow so hard we would build tunnels in the back yard. One time I remember my Dad help lift my brother out the kitchen window because we couldn't get out the back door. When Mom & Dad left we snuck up on the roof and jumped off in to the drifts.
Probably the funniest (and dumbest) thing we ever did was put our younger brother in a snow drift. We started stacking snow all around him. Kind of like a human snowman. LOL, This lady comes screaming across the street telling us we were going to kill the poor boy! Yeah, youth. The things ya do as kids.
N>B>L>F>Y> Bro!
Being at my uncle's house in eastern Kentucky as a kid. He lived on a hill that overlooked a large field (nothing as pretty as a meadow), and we could watch the big thunderstorms move in from the southwest.
As the winds began to stir the air you could feel the temperature drop by the minute, and faintly taste ozone. Then came the lightning, which seemed to march across the field toward you in front of an undulating curtain of rain. If we were lucky, the storms came late and my cousins and I would sit and watch them in the dark and whisper secrets to each other, knowing that the storm walking and talking about you kept them hidden from adult ears.
Thanks for stirring up a surprisingly pleasant memory. Like an unexpected gift!
Weather memories?
1. The tornado that destroyed my neighborhood when I was 4. I remember running with my mom to my home, dodging power polls.
2. Watching the rains torrent down for 3 hours, leaving death and distruction in it's path... Cheyenne was not made for heavy rains.
3. Driving thru a blizzard trying to return to Cheyenne after losing both job and home in another town. 1 car, 1 uhaul, 3 small children and a cat. It is only by the grace of God we didn't wreck.
My earliest childhood weather memory was the day Dad showed us lightning over the school down in the canyon behind our house, and it wasn't raining, but clear sky above us. That was so amazing to me for years, that there could be lightning without rain.
Last year I was driving home from work, across the lake, and there was a huge double rainbow stretching over in front of me, from one side of the lake to the other. Everyone was slowing down to see it - it was amazing! I've seen a lot of great rainbows in Seattle, but driving across the floating bridge into the middle of a giant double rainbow was awe-inspiring!
- AD(S)
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