15 Minutes of Sun

Today we had sun. After spending a winter here in this part of the world, I learned it was important to notice the sun when it came out. The second winter we were here I put a blue line on the calendar every day we had a few hours of sun, and a blue circle every day that was mostly sunny. It definitely made the winter easier to deal with.

Today is also February 2nd, Groundhog day, and the day of the Storm of the Century. The news is full of stories about record snows, record cold, record ice. The storm is massive. The satellite shows cloud cover from Texas to Maine. It reminds me a little of hurricane coverage. In Chicago the storm had hurricane force winds, but this isn't what caught my attention. The graphics on the weather map show a curving line between the cold, northern and western edge of the storm and the warmer, southern, eastern edge. A hurricane has a windward and a rainy side. Whichever side you are on as the hurricane passes by affects whether you should prepare for high winds or flooding. In the case of this storm the line was the delineation between extreme cold and heavy snow, or warmer temperatures and lots of rain.

We are in the southern, eastern side of this storm. In Dallas they had temperatures recording -2. Oklahoma had ice so thick people were ice skating on neighborhood streets. Chicago Airport can't move. People north of us had snow. In Pittsburgh, yesterday it rained all day. This morning the sun came out. It was 49 degrees!

As I looked outside the window dark green grass was visible in large patches. The sun lit up a glorious blue sky. It was so easy to think spring was right around the corner. I finished getting ready for an appointment. As I pulled my coat on, I looked out the window again. The horizon was dark...very dark. The sun was blazing through borrowed time.

I pulled out of the driveway and viewed a gray sky through the windshield. Banks of clouds scudded across the sky. The wind had arrived. Thirty minutes later as my hairdresser cut my hair we watched the snow blowing horizontally outside the window. The rest of the day the wind rattled the siding and taunted the birds as they held on to perches on bushes and feeders. By tonight the temperatures will once again be buried in the 20's.

 



It's Groundhog day. For 15 minutes we had sun! I saw it! Punxsatwny Phil says that means Spring is right around the corner. I hope he's right. I'm ready for more than 15 minutes of sun. But I've learned that weather is a fickle friend.