It is about 3:45 on a Wednesday afternoon on this 16th day of February. I just pulled up the National Weather Service (NWS) weather for Walnut Ridge, and it said the actual air temperature was 70 degrees! The Waalnut Ridge Airport is about 10 miles or so south of Pocahontas and is where the nearest automated NWS station is. Whatever the weather is there, chances are pretty good that is what the weather is in Pocahontas, and this afternoon, as we approach 4:00 p.m., it is 70 degrees.
It was just a week ago, last Wednesday, that snow began falling about daybreak. It snowed hard those first couple of hours. The visibility was poor, the driving treacherous. I needed (or so I thought) to take picture of a dinosaur snow animal built by some folks during the snow which fell two days earlier. There home was out state Hwy. 90 about six miles or so west of town.
It was not quite nine in the morning when I headed out that way. The snow had covered the road anad I was just trying t keep it out of the ditch. More than once I wondered just what in the heck was doing. But I made it to the residence, took the picture of the dinosaur (it really did look like one), chatted with the residents, got the necessary info , because after all, you want to be sure and identify everyone correctly, and headed back to town.
As I got ready to pull out of their driveway, a set of headlights started to appear out of the snowy fog. They were up high, so I knew it had to be a truck. It was actually an 18-wheeler carrying some sort of flammable liquid or gas, as I do recall distinctly remember seeing the "flammable" placard on the side of the tanker trailer.
I pulled out and followed him, on one hand thankful he was there, because he would be easy to follow in these near white-out conditions. But on the other hand, I was also thinking, if he unknowingly runs off the road and turns over and explodes, I would be a vapor in seconds. With that in mind, I backed off another few hundred feet, barely keeping him in my sight.
The snow stopped before noon and before it got dark that afternoon the sun actually came out for a bit. But it was bitterly cold and remained that way for a couple of days. Thursday and Friday morning both had lows of three degrees with wind chills below zero. Anyway you looked at it, it was cold.
But then the wind changed and it started to warm up on Saturday. It was near 50, then a few degrees warmer on Sunday. With bright sunshine aand warm southerly winds, the mercury hit the 60-degree mark on Monday and Tuesday, and now here we are on Wednesday and it is 70 degrees!
I am a warm-weather boy, and it is wonderful to feel these spring like temperatures. Yes, what a differenec a week makes.
No comments:
Post a Comment