Warm weather stayed here. Yesterday the temperature in Bismarck reached 61 degrees. Out of curiosity I looked in this morning's paper at some representative temperatures around the country where I'd expect to see it much warmer: Miami Beach - 63, Jacksonville - 61, Santa Fe -60, Dallas - 67, New Orleans - 57, and Birmingham - 52. We have no snow, a reflection of the drought we're experiencing in this central part of the state. Rainfall and snow melt lack about 5 1/2 inches from normal.
Through the years winter normally would have settled in by now with snow, cold, wind, smoke rising out of chimneys, eyeglasses fogging, ice, etc. If global warming is a reality, maybe we're living with the new normal. The last winter of consequence was 1997, the year of the big flood. Living in Wahpeton just a stone's throw from the head of the Red River we witnessed severe conditions first hand. The Red flows north and melting snow from our area met the iced-up riverbanks downstream. Water backed up and flooded us. I watched as our house was about to be swamped with the water inching toward our basement windows when weather changed, rapidly. It turned cold and the water froze again. Luckily we suffered no flooding damage while neighbors all around us did.
Winter stories accumulate. I remember especially the three day blizzard in 1966. I was a teacher in Bowdon, ND and saw a snowdrift as tall as the peak on the gym roof. The National Guard came to help clean streets. The late 40's and 50's brought lots of snow, and the snow removal equipment we've become accustomed to did not exist. When we could get to school and town we travelled through canyons of snow that old Vern Loomer had bulldozed open with his Caterpillar tractor. I don't know when that kind of weather will return, I hope it doesn't, but I'm sure it will.
