Polar Vortex Number 10

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I was a school teacher and administrator when I lived in Howell County, Missouri, from the fall of 1977 until the spring of 1983.  During the six years that I resided up the road in Mountain View, there was at least one time every year in which the local schools were closed due to snow for a week or more, and one of those years there was no school for nearly three full weeks.  The snows were formidable with young, snow-covered trees bending across the country roads blocking the passage of vehicles, and especially big ones like school buses.    Teachers, parents, and even students had more quality time at home than they could literally stand.

Then I left the area, helped raise a family, and traveled the world before returning to Howell County to retire in early March of 2014.  There was ice on the back porch the day that I arrived at my new home in West Plains and a smattering of snow on the ground, but winter was essentially over.  The following decade brought no more than a couple of inches of snow on only two occasions, and those snowfalls were gone after just a few days.  I didn't keep track of the local school calendars, but it was obvious that "snow days" were not nearly as common as they had been four decades earlier.

Now the age of mild winters seems to be coming to a sudden stop.  This year has been colder than normal for longer periods of a time, and area residents have awakened to snow-covered landscapes on multiple occasions.  Just a couple of weeks ago we had snowfall that was eight to ten inches deep and which took over a week to disappear.  We have also endured rainy stretches across multiple days, a rare occurrence in winter.  

Weather patterns are changing drastically and quickly, even in the Missouri Ozarks.  Climate change is real, no matter what some elderly politician riding around the Daytona International Speedway in the back of a presidential limo would like for you to believe.  Climate change is real - and so is science.

New Orleans woke up to several inches of snow one month ago today.  There were kids sledding down hills and ice skaters performing on Canal Street, on the actual damned street, in New Orleans, in southern  Louisiana, within spitting distance of the Gulf of Mexico!

This evening the tenth polar vortex of the winter season will push into the United States from Canada.  That's a record for a country that normally experiences no more than two of three of the major Arctic cold blasts in a year.  Polar vortex number 10, and it's only mid-February!

My area in extreme southern Missouri is under a winter storm warning from midnight tonight until 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday and heavy snow is expected.  This is a truly awful time to be under the thumb of people who don't believe in science.

The dogs and I are not happy.

I blame Trump.