Ah, March. The violence of March surprises me every year, even as my brain is readying itself for the shift to spring. It seems to be one round of wild weather after another, interspersed with isolated calm(ish) days with sun and crocuses.
In March our average lows are still below freezing, though on nice days the afternoons can be warm enough to ditch the heavy coats, the gloves, the head wraps and mufflers. Of course, the next morning it's back to cold-weather gear, especially if the wind is up. Today the wind is blowing at 35 MPH or so, and the local weather guy is promising gusts this afternoon around 55 MPH. Great. Out here in the plains there is nothing to slow these winds down, so we spend all winter into spring under a great river of fast-moving air. This is one of the things that keeps this area from being heavily populated, even though we are close enough to Albuquerque to commute (if you want to). I've seen many nice houses built just this side of Edgewood over the decade I've been here; usually people build in the summer when it's hot and the breezes keep things cooler, then they enjoy the lovely autumn, and learn to hunker down for the winter. Then spring with the wild winds arrives in March, and by June a lot of those nice new homes are up for sale as their owners pack up and head back to Albuquerque, defeated by the incessant winds.
Some of us learn to live with it (though I wouldn't mind a few quiet hours of stillness now and then). We do spend some time picking up things which took off from the porch in the night. A windstorm like this one can leave pieces of plyboard, tin roofing, market baskets and coolers, the occasional hat or glove, and even a small table or two scattered for about a half mile down range. Not to mention all those feathers, though those are biodegradable and could probably be considered fertilizer (which means we are responsible for a Good Thing!).
Last week, though, we had a snowfall with paradoxically no wind at all, and it was the most beautiful snow I think I've seen. In the morning every item, even the thorns on the locusts, bore an inch of soft, fluffy snow. The bird pens were all tented in white, and the turkeys spent a while tilting their heads to see what was different about the sky. That afternoon was in contrast very warm, and the snow was nothing more than a memory by evening. The next day, we were back to winds, rains, hail, snow, and a winter rainbow.
By the way, I didn't photoshop the photo at all or even auto-
correct it. The light and dark contrast was intense, and I
wouldn't have been surprised if this storm sprouted a
tornado. Luckily, it didn't.
No comments:
Post a Comment