We've had some flooding, a few snowstorms and some wind here in Pacific Northwest this winter. It's been very exciting to listen to the radio and watch the TV newscasts.
This King 5 TV video of people playing bumper cars on a steep icy hill in Portland is more just bizarre than exciting (although I'm sure the drivers were pretty pumped up as their cars slid sideways, and backwards and in circles down that hill.)
It looks like the person driving the car in the beginning may have been trying to accelerate out of trouble, or maybe just thought, "what the hell...I'm sliding down this hill, I've already banged up my car beyond my insurance deductible, I might as well make a good show of it."
I have to say for me it's much more exciting on the radio and T.V. than it has been when I actually go outside my house.
Not so say a lot of people didn't have problems with downed trees, damaged houses and extended periods without electricity, but where I live it's been pretty ho-hum.
I enjoy the excitement of the local newscasters talking about "Winter Blast 2006" or whatever name they give the current weather. They all seem so delighted to have something important and exciting to talk about. I love to see them standing out in the wind, rain or snow - giving a blow by blow of how tough things are looking. Sometimes it's funny for a person who has lived outside of this region to see a news reporter standing beside a street that has an inch of snow, talking about the major weather event we see unfolding. When I get out and drive on that inch of snow I always think of a farmer or rancher somewhere in the Dakotas, Minnesota or Montana - who has to go out and work in the winter - and what they would think of our "severe weather".
If you want some real weather I think you need to move either inland, down to the Gulf coast or further north. Someplace like Snag, in the Yukon Territory or Summit Lake, B.C.
According to the NOAA weather trivia,
"On February 3rd, 1947 the temperature dipped to -81 degrees at the recording station in Snag, in the Yukon Territory. This is the coldest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere. A temperature of -96 degrees was recorded on January 7th, 1982 near Summit Lake in British Columbia. While the recording was likely accurate it was not official and, therefore, the "official" record is still 81 degrees below zero."
The South is good for weather too. You can get some exiting weather down on the Gulf Coast. When I lived in Pensacola and traveled around Pascagola, Mobile, and New Orleans; there were real weather alerts for hurricanes and tropical storms. There's an order of magnitude difference between thinking winds may be coming that will blow your house away and what we get in the Pacific Northwest where a windstorm may blow down trees and do some damage to homes.
Montana and Wyoming can have some interesting weather too, such as the huge extremes when the Chinook winds come; and some really cold windy weather for extended periods up on the Montana Hi-Line.
The Chinook winds caused an unbelievable 103°F variation in temperature on January 15, 1972, in Loma, Montana. The temperature rose from −47°C (−54°F) to 9°C (49°F); the greatest temperature change ever recorded during a 24-hour period.
For my money, some of the most exciting weather is in the Midwest. Being in the upper parts of Minnesota in summer, it's exciting to see the storms come in, the lightning, rain and wind. Maybe a tornado or two thrown in for good measure.
One of my most exciting weather related trip was driving across South Dakota, in February, almost 30 years ago. I was a sailor on my way from Chicago to San Diego; driving an old beater Ford Maverick. My plan was to stop in Montana for a week or so, leave the car there and fly on to California.
As I drove across South Dakota the temperature dropped, and wind and snow was reducing visibility to almost zero. My car was starting to ice up (not just the outside...the moisture in the gas tank) and the car was starting to miss. You have to be in that sort of weather to understand the feeling. I'm getting a little worried but doing okay - when the weather changed into an ice storm. I'm not sure how that works but it caused a couple of inches of glare ice on the highway. There were power lines down, lots of jack-knifed semis and cars in the ditch.
This is in the middle of nowhere. I still remember seeing a Highway Patrolman getting out of his car and slipping, and falling, on the ice as he walked to help out a stranded motorist. That storm killed quite a few cattle simply because they were standing outside and covered with ice. You wouldn't want to be outside or in a car with no heat.
All I was thinking was that if I stopped I wouldn't get going again until it thawed out. I got through South Dakota on a wing and a prayer and made it into Eastern Montana. My travel budget was a little limited and I ended up trading a set of socket wrenches to a guy at a gas station for a tank of gas to get me home. Ahhh the good old days.
Being high up in the mountains or on a lake or some other body of water in a storm can be good for a few thrills too. It's scary to be on an exposed mountain side with lightning. I camped out on a glacier in the Grand Tetons years ago, during a climbing trip, and a summer storm came in with lightning. There really wasn't any good place to go - other than trying to find the lowest spot you could.
Back in my younger days, I road my bicycle to Woodbine (elevation 5400 feet) and then walked the 22 miles over the Absarokas and Beartooths (elevation 11,000 feet) into Cooke City and it started to snow in July...which was interesting. There are terrific fields of wildflowers in that high country (and back then once I was a few miles away from the campground I didn't see another person, only some bear tracks). Not sure what it's like now.
Sitting inside my house watching King 5, or KOMO or KIRO, reporters get excited because "it might snow", just doesn't compare.
South Dakota Weather History and Trivia for Febuary
Montana Hi-Line Pictures : Photos of the Hi-Line Region
Absaroka Range - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pictures of Montana : The Mountains in Montana - Photo Gallery 1
