Good to be in Iowa - Believe it or Not

I sit here writing this post on the second floor and northwest corner of Tim and Lonita's home, listening to the wind blow; and blowing it is! Until you have lived in the midwest and participated in a northerner you have difficulty understanding just how much the wind can blow. As I write this post the weather channel says the temperature is 6 degrees F with a wind chill of -15 F and a wind blowing from the NW at 21 mph and gusting to 30 mph. Now that has all the beginnings of a true northerner and reminds us of the years we lived in Iowa, especially the winters.

The morning started pleasantly enough at 27 F and when I compared it at 8 am to our other families cities only Las Vegas was warmer. However, that has all changed. By the time 11:30 am got here the temperature had only dropped one degree, the wind was only 8 mph (see to the right), we had a light snow, and it felt 17 F.

I have taken a little effort to point things out on the graphic to the right to make sure everyone understands "how" to read it. Our kids used to tell us the weather channel was old folks "MTV" and I think they were probably right. Since we have moved to Las Vegas we don't watch it any more. Go figure! Actually the whole thing is really self explanatory, so read it for yourself. If you can't figure it out it's because you either don't live in the midwest or you aren't old enough.

The early mild temperature didn't last long, by the time 1 pm rolled around we had dropped 6 degrees in real temperature and 13 degrees in wind chill and the wind was picking up.

Three hours later we began to feel the real brunt of the weather and we had not even gotten to the cold part of the evening yet. A little after 4 pm we were down to a wind chill -10 F, in just 3 hours. We are just beginning to feel a real Iowa winter.

You have got to wonder how the early settlers handled this kind of weather. Some of Willa Cather's "O Pioneers". She writes, speaking of Nebraska (which is only 3 hours away by car), "Winter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in which nature recuperates, in whcih she sinks to sleep between the fruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. ... The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country, and spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could easily believe that in the dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever" (pp 185-186). And so it does feel that way sometimes, but when you sit in the comfort of your home with your family you have faith and know spring will come again, the green will return, and this winter will be left behind as a receeding memory.

It is good to be in Iowa - believe it or not!

Western Iowa along Interstate 80 at 20,000 feet (or so) - Not quite what Willa Cather remembers, but things have changed in the last 100 years.