Don’t blame Mother Nature, blame your local columnist
It’s my fault. Totally. I am to blame. And I am so sorry.
What am I sorry for, you may ask. For last weekend’s wicked weather. And I am to blame because I wrote in this space last week about our series of 80 degree plus days the week before, and the fact that this is Minnesota, and the weather has always been volatile.
Snowstorms, for instance. In almost any month of the year we can have snow in Minnesota. Granted that includes ‘Way Up North’ Minnesota, where July might be the only month which won’t have the possibility of snow.
I wrote about some wild weather from past years. And I used the old saying about Minne-snow-ta and how if you don’t like the weather in Minnesota, wait five minutes and it will change.
I was a little worried when I wrote last week’s column that maybe I should leave well enough alone. I think I may have even said something about “jinxing the weather.”
Well, I guess I did jinx it and I angered the weather gods. Because, they came after me with a vengeance.
Here is my story and I am sticking to it.
My wife, Pam, and I decided to go to Tracy, Minnesota, on Saturday afternoon, April 15, to stay overnight with friends, then head to Brandon, South Dakota, on Sunday. Our granddaughter was dancing there, as a warmup for going to World Competition in Florida.
Saturday, late afternoon, it started to snow in Tracy. The unusual thing about this snow was that it was some of the largest snowflakes we had ever seen. Really.
Some were as large as silver dollars (if anyone knows what those are anymore) and some were even larger. Now, I realize large snowflakes are usually a group of snowflakes that hook together in the sky and come down as one big flake. But, these seemed to be something else. They were ominous…
Sunday morning we got up to a full on snowstorm. It was snowing hard, everything was covered in snow, and in typical Southwest Minnesota fashion, the wind was blowing hard. Like 40 miles per hour hard.
We waited a while hoping it would quit, but eventually we decided to take off and brave it.
It might have been a mistake.
Leaving Tracy and heading west on Highway 14 the road was covered in snow and there were drifts from the 40 mile per hour wind out of the north and it was hard to see the road most of the time. It was some of the worst winter driving conditions I have driven in for a long time. And it was not winter. It was spring.
Yeah, I know what you are saying, what on earth were we thinking? Well, we were thinking it would let up as we headed southwest.
But no, it was bad all the way to Worthington, as we crawled along trying to get up to 30 miles per hour.
On I-90 it was somewhat better but still a north wind and snow on the north westbound lane.
But, by Luverne it was not so bad, still windy but way less snow. By Brandon, South Dakota (which is just across the border) it was a beautiful sunny day and no snow, on the ground or in the air, to be seen. Still mighty windy, however.
It seemed unreal. Like we had left the dead of winter and entered an alternate reality where there was no winter and it was spring. All in a few white-knuckle driving hours.
Now, as this issue of the Faribault County Register is about to go to press, on Friday, April 21, snow is once again predicted. And you can blame me for that. I am sure it is my fault. I have ticked off the weather gods, Mother Nature does not like me.
I will try and be nicer to her and maybe we will be blessed with some beautiful weather later this spring and summer.
If not, now you know who to blame.
Sorry.