weather in the heartland

When I was a child we were always taught that we lived in the Midwest. Several years ago, maybe even a decade or more ago, someone came up with the bright idea that we live in the Upper Plains while people east of the Mississippi River actually live in the Midwest. Will someone please explain to me how that is even geographically possible? I am not too bitter about that; I just feel displaced!

Anyway, I love living in the Heartland, Midwest, or Upper Plains (where ever). Most residents of this part of the country have great core values and are generally pleasant to their neighbors and co-workers.

One great part about this region is the weather. There has been a long-standing joke "if you don't like the weather, stay around about an hour and it will change". The sad part is how true that statement really is. The early part of this week the weather was awesome. We had unseasonably mild (translated warm) temps ranging from 45 to 60 degrees (warm enough for shorts and flip flops). Mid-week we had one day of very strong wind then today, the snow!

For several days the weather geniuses have been predicting the snow but they never really know exactly where it will hit, when it will hit, or how much snow we will actually get. Today they came pretty close to getting it right. They predicted the right path it would take and how much we would get. The storm got in a hurry though so it started sooner and ended earlier than they had predicted. Overall it was an impressive job of forecasting.

The best part about the storm was the fact that the area schools started announcing last night that they were canceling classes for today and the snow was not even predicted to start falling until about 10:00 this morning. All of the Metro schools (except one) announced by this morning that they were canceling classes and we had not even seen one snowflake which usually angers many parents. I am sure that was a tough call for the Superintendents to make. Before 9:00 a.m. we realized that the weather guys/gals were right this time as the snow came in with a vengeance!

I have not heard the weather report tonight but the prediction was for thunder snow today. Thunder snow is an awesome weather phenomenon during which it thunders and lightnings as the snow is falling. I think it is yet another sign that God has a great sense of humor. During thunder snow the snow accumulates at a very fast rate, usually two or more inches an hour. It's awesome! To put that in perspective for those of you who do not get to play in the snow, a normal snow storm may take two hours or more to drop one inch of snow. I did not hear any thunder but the rate of accumulation was consistent with thunder snow.

If all goes well tomorrow I will try to take some pictures of the snow to share with you.