A Significant Weather Event

 

We need to talk about the weather. It is insane. Like, "had too many drinks and has a lampshade on its head" out of control.

I can't even count how many times in the past two months we've had temperature shifts so dramatic we practically got whiplash. Such as the temperature dropping forty degrees in 24 hours. Or the temperature rising forty degrees in 12 hours.

One thing we have not had, however, is any kind of precipitation. Dry as a bone here on the high plains for months now. This is nice in a way, because we haven't had to worry about hail or tornados this year. Not nice, of course, because drought of any kind is Very Bad for an agricultural community.

So when we saw snow in our forecast, we were initially very happy. Moisture! Hooray!

Then the forecast developed a little further, and we saw that the snow was going to be accompanied by 20-mile-an-hour winds. And that the temperatures at night were going to be in the low teens. And it wouldn't get above freezing during the day. AND that this was going to continue for three days.

Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Yesterday was the first day of the stormy weather. We woke up to 15 degrees and snow blowing around, but no significant accumulations and school wasn't cancelled, so off to school (or work, in my case) we went.

To find that the elementary building's furnace wasn't working.

Yes. A non-working furnace on what might be the coldest day of the year.

Luckily, the kids at this school all live on ranches and definitely do not spend their days in climate control, so they're pretty hardy. Unluckily, it was 46 degrees in the school while I was sitting there going over long division with the fifth graders. 

I repeat, 46 degrees.

I was extremely grateful I wore my warmest wool coat (this one!), because I didn't take it off all day. 

Meanwhile, one of Cubby's classmates was sitting there calmly doing his math work in short sleeves. It was 46 degrees!

Incidentally, did you know that dry-erase white boards don't erase fully when it's that cold? I didn't either, but now I do.

Anyway. 

Random break for an old photo of Poppy in her snow gear.

Ready for a school in which the furnace isn't working.

There was working heat in some other classrooms around the campus, so I spent some time shuffling kids around, letting them all have a chance to thaw out away from their refrigerated classrooms while the poor maintenance guy had what is undoubtedly his worst day of work in awhile. 

There is no calling a service person when you're a hundred miles from anywhere. He was on his own.

He did eventually get everything working in the early afternoon, although the building never really had a chance to warm up before school was dismissed an hour early due to the worsening snow. And the fact that several of the kids had a couple of hours of driving before they would be home.

Thankfully, we don't have school today, so we can all huddle in by the woodstove as the children get on and off the various Zoom classes they are now expected to attend, thanks to the laptops provided to them by the school. Whee.

So, how's the weather where you are? Anything dramatic?