When I got up last Thursday morning at 5 a.m., the outside thermometer showed a flat out, even zero.
As I sipped my first cup of coffee, I saw the temperature drop to -1, and by the time I left the house at 5:45 it was down to -4.
I continued to watch Billy’s website at work and saw the temperature drop to a morning low of -5.3.
While minus 5 was the official temperature reading in Ava–and that has been the lowest reading of the season–many folks saw the temperature dip much lower on Thursday morning.
Lionel Daugherty, who lives just west of Ava on K Highway, had a reading of -9 and his neighbor, David Mahan, reported 10 below.
But then, the sun came out and voila, the temperature shot up to 5 above in a matter of a half hour or so!
By 8:45 it was almost 8 degrees. Heatwave! Can’t believe how much warmer it felt just seeing the sun shining outside.
Temperatures continued to rise on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday afternoon it was a springlike 65 degrees.
Just a week ago we were hoping the temperature would warm up close to the freezing mark so some of the ice and snow could melt. For the past four or five days now, the nighttime temperature has been warmer than the afternoon temperature a week ago.
A news report I saw last week showed the jet stream is shifting to a straight east-west flow with no huge dip in the middle that brought our recent cold weather from Canada. Could it be the groundhog was right?
Don’t get your hopes up just yet. Let’s go back to the trusted Almanac.
For March 24-27: “Major storm evolves over the Southern Rockies and pushes eastward, bringing significant snows to Kansas and Missouri.”
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From watching weather reports on television, it looks like International Falls, Minnesota, is the coldest place on earth – at least in the continental U.S.
One place we don’t hear much about is Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
For nearly 62 years, Mount Washington held the world record for the fastest wind gust ever recorded on the surface of the earth.
Mount Washington’s famous wind gust of 231 mph, recorded on April 12, 1934 at the Mount Washington Observatory, stood until 1996 when a wind speed of 253 mph was recorded at Barrow Island, Australia during Typhoon Olivia.
“The new record does not diminish the fact that Mount Washington is one of the fiercest places on the planet,” said Ken Rancourt, Mount Washington Observatory Director of Summit Operations, in a report entered on the Internet.
Another report I read said, “The lowest temperature every recorded on Mount Washington was -47 degrees Fahrenheit, and the highest was 72 degrees. However, few places on Earth can match Mount Washington’s deadly wintry mix of freezing fog, savage wind, heavy ice, and snow. Nearly 96 inches of snow fell on the mountain in May 1997 alone! During the winter of 1968-69, Old Man Winter dumped over 566 inches of snow on ‘the Rockpile’.”
The forecast for Monday, Feb. 14: Mild temperatures and foggy conditions today will be replaced by a chilly but clearer pattern tomorrow. Temperatures will reach some 10-15 degrees above normal today…Low pressure associated with this front will race towards New England during the afternoon…Behind the low, its associated cold front will barrel through during the night, prompting a freefall in temperatures back to levels well below normal. Northwest winds sustained near 100 mph accompanied by gusts approaching 120 mph are likely early tomorrow just as fog begins to thin and ultimately lift.
One report I read on the Internet referred to 60 mph winds as “calm.”
Life in the Missouri Ozarks is not so bad.
