Category Archives: wind

On snow drifts

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Snow drifts are silent frozen sentinels that stand guard at the gates of winter. Mother Nature, and her helper, the North Wind, work tirelessly throughout winter to sculpt these waves, frozen in time and space until the sun comes out in March. Drifts clog driveways, block up doors and windows, and turn short cuts into dead-ends. Built out of the fluid dynamics of blowing snow, drifts grow in the wake of falling snow, a function of wind and the obstacles the wind and snow encounter. Most of the time you can stand back and just admire the strange fractal art of these strange white waves that don’t move, but a big drift is also a brick wall that must be dismantled if the sidewalk is to be cleared or the driveway made passable. Drifts are made of packed snow which is a whole other animal and bears little resemblance to the white fluffy stuff that gently falls in the woods at the end of the day. Snow drifts are both elegant and beautiful, and at the same time, they are deadly and malevolent. You can’t break through with your car without hurting yourself and hanging up your vehicle. Snow drifts are silent car traps that can hang up the sturdiest four-wheel-drive and leave it with its wheels spinning. The snow is as tough as steel and as delicate as lace. And when the sun comes out, it begins to shrink like the Wicked Witch of the West. Drifts are ephemeral, three-dimensional, chaotic, unpredictable. Drifts are what remind us that we are not in control–never were in the first place.

On snow drifts

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Snow drifts are silent frozen sentinels that stand guard at the gates of winter. Mother Nature, and her helper, the North Wind, work tirelessly throughout winter to sculpt these waves, frozen in time and space until the sun comes out in March. Drifts clog driveways, block up doors and windows, and turn short cuts into dead-ends. Built out of the fluid dynamics of blowing snow, drifts grow in the wake of falling snow, a function of wind and the obstacles the wind and snow encounter. Most of the time you can stand back and just admire the strange fractal art of these strange white waves that don’t move, but a big drift is also a brick wall that must be dismantled if the sidewalk is to be cleared or the driveway made passable. Drifts are made of packed snow which is a whole other animal and bears little resemblance to the white fluffy stuff that gently falls in the woods at the end of the day. Snow drifts are both elegant and beautiful, and at the same time, they are deadly and malevolent. You can’t break through with your car without hurting yourself and hanging up your vehicle. Snow drifts are silent car traps that can hang up the sturdiest four-wheel-drive and leave it with its wheels spinning. The snow is as tough as steel and as delicate as lace. And when the sun comes out, it begins to shrink like the Wicked Witch of the West. Drifts are ephemeral, three-dimensional, chaotic, unpredictable. Drifts are what remind us that we are not in control–never were in the first place.

On very cold weather

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A cold front, a huge blob of cold, meta-cold air, is drifting south out of Canada this evening. Wind chills are already in the double-digits below zero in most of the area, and I suspect that tomorrow will not be a nice day for going out, visiting, shopping, church, or most anything else. It will be forty degrees colder when I get up in the morning than it right now. You’d think I’d be used to such outrageous weather, but living in central Texas makes a body soft and whimpy. We don’t get this kind of weather in Waco. We often get triple-digit heat–nothing unusual there–but we never, ever, get double-digit temperatures below zero, windchill or otherwise. Oh, yes, we have the other extreme, but if you just stay out of the sun, the weather won’t kill you, no matter how hot it is. Here in the north, however, the wind howls, the house shakes, and frigid arctic air is barreling down on the midwest, making all of our lives just a little more interesting than we really need. Of course, I own good winter gear–a down coat, big gloves, boots, long underwear, a big woolly scarf, a down-filled hat–but I could always use more. I worry about the animals that have to stay outside. I’m sure they have burrowed in for the night, keeping a low, low profile with this ugly wind blowing. After living for twenty-plus years in Minnesota, you’d think I wouldn’t even notice such a thing. In the meantime, what is really surprising is how most people just go one with their lives as if nothing were out of the ordinary. I saw one lady at the gas station just now with no coat on. Post-script: it will warm up just fine by the end of the week.

On very cold weather

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A cold front, a huge blob of cold, meta-cold air, is drifting south out of Canada this evening. Wind chills are already in the double-digits below zero in most of the area, and I suspect that tomorrow will not be a nice day for going out, visiting, shopping, church, or most anything else. It will be forty degrees colder when I get up in the morning than it right now. You’d think I’d be used to such outrageous weather, but living in central Texas makes a body soft and whimpy. We don’t get this kind of weather in Waco. We often get triple-digit heat–nothing unusual there–but we never, ever, get double-digit temperatures below zero, windchill or otherwise. Oh, yes, we have the other extreme, but if you just stay out of the sun, the weather won’t kill you, no matter how hot it is. Here in the north, however, the wind howls, the house shakes, and frigid arctic air is barreling down on the midwest, making all of our lives just a little more interesting than we really need. Of course, I own good winter gear–a down coat, big gloves, boots, long underwear, a big woolly scarf, a down-filled hat–but I could always use more. I worry about the animals that have to stay outside. I’m sure they have burrowed in for the night, keeping a low, low profile with this ugly wind blowing. After living for twenty-plus years in Minnesota, you’d think I wouldn’t even notice such a thing. In the meantime, what is really surprising is how most people just go one with their lives as if nothing were out of the ordinary. I saw one lady at the gas station just now with no coat on. Post-script: it will warm up just fine by the end of the week.

On freezing weather

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In central Texas, we are all freezing to death. After weeks and weeks, months and months of scorching days and 100 degree days, we are floundering in a morass of cold, rainy, freezing rain days and nights. By Minnesota standards this is not cold weather, but if you compare the relative coldness compared to our normal temperatures, we are really hurting. Even last Wednesday we were still in our shirt sleeves, no coats or hats, no sweaters or gloves–it was almost 80F on that day. The next day, however, was another story as temperatures plunged sixty degrees into the upper twenties. Perhaps if the temperatures had slowly gone down, bit by bit, we might have gotten used to the changing temperatures, and it wouldn’t have felt so cold. Since then, we have been walking around bundled up like a bunch of errant Michelin Men, dressed in multiple layers, hunting for our seldom used hats and our dusty gloves. We lean into the bitter northwest wind as if this will make it hurt less. We pull back into our coats like scared turtles, trying to stay warm. Perhaps if the wind were less biting, or the damp air less frigid, then we might have a chance against the cold air. So we go about our daily duties, off to work, walking to class, cutting across campus to get a cup of coffee, pretending that we are not freezing to death. Perhaps the best way to get used to the cold is to spend some time out in it? Living in the blazing temperatures of central Texas exacts a high toll: we are no longer any good at dealing with a cold day. We are wimps.

On freezing weather

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In central Texas, we are all freezing to death. After weeks and weeks, months and months of scorching days and 100 degree days, we are floundering in a morass of cold, rainy, freezing rain days and nights. By Minnesota standards this is not cold weather, but if you compare the relative coldness compared to our normal temperatures, we are really hurting. Even last Wednesday we were still in our shirt sleeves, no coats or hats, no sweaters or gloves–it was almost 80F on that day. The next day, however, was another story as temperatures plunged sixty degrees into the upper twenties. Perhaps if the temperatures had slowly gone down, bit by bit, we might have gotten used to the changing temperatures, and it wouldn’t have felt so cold. Since then, we have been walking around bundled up like a bunch of errant Michelin Men, dressed in multiple layers, hunting for our seldom used hats and our dusty gloves. We lean into the bitter northwest wind as if this will make it hurt less. We pull back into our coats like scared turtles, trying to stay warm. Perhaps if the wind were less biting, or the damp air less frigid, then we might have a chance against the cold air. So we go about our daily duties, off to work, walking to class, cutting across campus to get a cup of coffee, pretending that we are not freezing to death. Perhaps the best way to get used to the cold is to spend some time out in it? Living in the blazing temperatures of central Texas exacts a high toll: we are no longer any good at dealing with a cold day. We are wimps.

On the wind

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The wind is not your friend. The wind has been blowing with quite a bit of force in central Texas, whipping up brush fires, dust, dirt, and tumble weeds. I walked for nearly an hour yesterday in a stiff breeze that was blowing from the east. In Spain they say the wind can drive you mad if you let it. They even gave it a name, the “Tramontana.” While I lived in Minnesota, I always feared a sharp “tramontana” because on a cold day, it could be quite lethal. The still air temperature could often be rather reasonable, but a stiff north breeze at 20 to 30 miles per hour could make being outside a really rough business. Yet the wind is blind, blows on the just and the unjust alike, causing a person to zip up their jacket, raise their collar, and stuff their hands into their pockets. I’ve seen perfectly beautiful days ruined by a strong wind that blows everything around, ruins your picnic, brings rain to the parade, drives a gentle snow into a horizontal frenzy, whips up deadly whitecaps on the lake. Strong winds will ruin a perfectly good run, turning it into a torturous exercise in pain, endurance, and will. Sometimes you cannot put on enough clothing to blot out the effects of a cold north wind that started off somewhere in Ontario and is making a clean sweep of the central plains. Evil winds will wreck your garden, drop hail on your unsuspecting head, ruin your kite flying aspirations, ground your flight to Chicago, and tear the roof off of your garage. High winds were the bane of medieval cathedral architects who were worried about their new high structures–cathedral walls make great sails, which is unintentional, but it could be fatal. Today, architects play with all sorts of strange shapes in an attempt to minimize wind damage and baffle mother nature just long enough so she won’t blow down their buildings. The wind is, of course, a natural by-product of an active atmosphere of a spinning planet as high pressure chases low pressure, seeking to release energy and go to entropy. The problem is that human beings are trying to live in the middle of all this active energy, which can be either good or bad. Good if you are sailing or drying laundry, maybe flying a kite, but bad if you are running into it and have a mile or more to go before you can change direction. The wind can blow a truck off a road, tip over trees, cause cars to fly, break windows, scatter your lawn furniture. Yet, what is more comforting than a light breeze on a warm summer night? Is there anything more comforting than the rustle of a breeze blowing through the tree tops at the end of a summer day? Wind is, however, about disorder and chaos, out of which very little good ever comes. Disorder and chaos speak to our inability to control anything at all. Control is an illusion that the wind has come to destroy. We transfer our own insecurities about life onto metaphors involving the wind because the wind seems to exemplify all that is fragile and ephemeral in life. The wind comes and goes without explanation, much like Fortune itself, which is as inexplicable and as arbitrary as a light summer breeze that might cool your sweaty brow and give comfort to your tired bones. Just as the wind can bring destruction and tragedy, it might also bring a cooling breeze that lightens the heart and give hope to the soul. What we cannot predict, ever, is when and where the wind might blow, whether it is an ill-wind or a gentle breeze, whether we will have to zip up or open a window.

On the wind

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The wind is not your friend. The wind has been blowing with quite a bit of force in central Texas, whipping up brush fires, dust, dirt, and tumble weeds. I walked for nearly an hour yesterday in a stiff breeze that was blowing from the east. In Spain they say the wind can drive you mad if you let it. They even gave it a name, the “Tramontana.” While I lived in Minnesota, I always feared a sharp “tramontana” because on a cold day, it could be quite lethal. The still air temperature could often be rather reasonable, but a stiff north breeze at 20 to 30 miles per hour could make being outside a really rough business. Yet the wind is blind, blows on the just and the unjust alike, causing a person to zip up their jacket, raise their collar, and stuff their hands into their pockets. I’ve seen perfectly beautiful days ruined by a strong wind that blows everything around, ruins your picnic, brings rain to the parade, drives a gentle snow into a horizontal frenzy, whips up deadly whitecaps on the lake. Strong winds will ruin a perfectly good run, turning it into a torturous exercise in pain, endurance, and will. Sometimes you cannot put on enough clothing to blot out the effects of a cold north wind that started off somewhere in Ontario and is making a clean sweep of the central plains. Evil winds will wreck your garden, drop hail on your unsuspecting head, ruin your kite flying aspirations, ground your flight to Chicago, and tear the roof off of your garage. High winds were the bane of medieval cathedral architects who were worried about their new high structures–cathedral walls make great sails, which is unintentional, but it could be fatal. Today, architects play with all sorts of strange shapes in an attempt to minimize wind damage and baffle mother nature just long enough so she won’t blow down their buildings. The wind is, of course, a natural by-product of an active atmosphere of a spinning planet as high pressure chases low pressure, seeking to release energy and go to entropy. The problem is that human beings are trying to live in the middle of all this active energy, which can be either good or bad. Good if you are sailing or drying laundry, maybe flying a kite, but bad if you are running into it and have a mile or more to go before you can change direction. The wind can blow a truck off a road, tip over trees, cause cars to fly, break windows, scatter your lawn furniture. Yet, what is more comforting than a light breeze on a warm summer night? Is there anything more comforting than the rustle of a breeze blowing through the tree tops at the end of a summer day? Wind is, however, about disorder and chaos, out of which very little good ever comes. Disorder and chaos speak to our inability to control anything at all. Control is an illusion that the wind has come to destroy. We transfer our own insecurities about life onto metaphors involving the wind because the wind seems to exemplify all that is fragile and ephemeral in life. The wind comes and goes without explanation, much like Fortune itself, which is as inexplicable and as arbitrary as a light summer breeze that might cool your sweaty brow and give comfort to your tired bones. Just as the wind can bring destruction and tragedy, it might also bring a cooling breeze that lightens the heart and give hope to the soul. What we cannot predict, ever, is when and where the wind might blow, whether it is an ill-wind or a gentle breeze, whether we will have to zip up or open a window.

On blizzards

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I am sitting on the edge of a blizzard. The anticipation is killing me. The dark of the night has overtaken the countryside, but the first flakes have yet to fall. Visibility has already dropped to zero in several areas south and west of here, but for the moment, mother nature remains eerily silent. Waiting for the other shoe to drop is easily worse than actually watching the snow fall. Blizzards are a strange brand of storm, a sort of frozen hurricane with a wicked breeze and slippery precipitation. But they are rare, and I’ve only experienced a few of these natural wonders of winter weather. By itself, snow does not a blizzard make. A lot of snow is just a nuisance, makes driving really tough, and snowballs are an option, but just snow does not a blizzard make. A real blizzard whips up when the wind starts to blow–15 to 20 miles an hour and above. When the snow starts to move horizontally, you might think of taking cover, somewhere warm where the wind cannot reach you. The wind in winter is not your friend. In a full-blown blizzard, the wind drifts the snow, reduces visibility, hides the roads, covers the sidewalks, and nips at your nose and ears. My most bitter winter memories have to do with fighting the wind as I walked to school, tried to run, made my way home. And yet, if you don’t have to go out, if you get a school day, a day off, a day when you have no responsibilities outside of your home, then you can sit by a fire and watch it snow, let the wind blown, the temperature drop, and the snow fall. From the security of your own well-heated home, a blizzard is a thing of beauty to experience as it whips and whirls the snow outside your windows. The ballet between wind, snow, and cold is a masterwork of chaos, anarchy, and power. We puny humans think we can control things, we think that we are so powerful, we think that we are the center of the universe, but a blizzard will make you think otherwise. Witnessing the power of a winter storm is a grim reminder of how fragile we really are, that we can only survive under “Goldylocks” conditions where the temperatures are just right, where the wind doesn’t blow too much, where barometric pressures won’t kill us. The atmospheric conditions generated by a blizzard are extreme and dangerous. The marvelous deadly beauty of a blizzard is a hint that we are small, fragile players on the face of this strange planet. We over-estimate our own importance, our ability to control our environment, our reliance on heating and electricity to keep us from freezing to death. There is this delicate balance between the tragic dangerous symmetry of dancing ice and snow and our humble delicate bodies that crave a warm protected nest that will shield us from the freezing daggers of a blizzard. To experience such a storm borders on the sublime–the violence, the danger, the unpredicatability, but to witness such a thing is also to respect it and keep one’s distance. Nevertheless, there will be those people, tonight and tomorrow, who will need rescuing from the snow when their vehicles go into the ditch, spinning and sliding off the road as they challenge the laws of physics. No matter how much you spend on four-wheel drive and stitched leather seats, your luxury SUV is no match for a healthy blizzard. Something to think about.

On the thing that came from another world

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This strange little film came out at a time when the world was wondering if it would have to duck and cover, and the world’s leaders were all caught up in dreams nuclear war, atom bombs, and anti-communist rhetoric. The whole world was Cold War obsessed, and the crazy senator from Wisconsin was carrying around lists of all the communists that worked in the State Department. Unsure of either the science or the ethics surrounding the nuclear age, people lived in fear that today might be their last day on earth if someone got crazy and punched the wrong button, sending nuclear weapons flying, helter-skelter, across the world and obliterating every living thing. So this archetypal ghost story comes with an interesting twist: one of our Cold War outposts in Alaska find a flying saucer in the ice near the North Pole, and they bring back, frozen in ice as if he were some wooly mammoth or something, an alien. This alien, played by Gun Smoke’s James Arness, is a rather blood-thirsty and violent creature who wants to wipe out the men and woman who are temporarily stranded in the Arctic wasteland. In the true spirit of American bootstrap initiatives, they fight back and (spoiler alert!) and defeat said creature. When I first saw this film back in the sixties, I was just a kid and it scared the heebie-jeebies out of me. Now I can listen to characters talk, understand their fear of the unknown, and experience their total blind panic in a very direct fashion. This film gives a strange vicarious thrill, but it is not cathartic, and the ending leaves one feeling both incomplete and nervous. This movie predates Alien by almost thirty years, but the story is there. There is a direct threat to the security and well-being of the people at the outpost, and those in command must do something to resolve the situation. What I found incredibly creepy about this film is this: the difference between life and death is very fine, and it doesn’t take much to move from one to the other. The intensity of the film, the nervous tension among the characters, the fear, and the violent nature of the human response drain the viewer of energy because the emotional response to this film is extreme. The fear of the unknown is strong, overwhelming, intimidating, reckless, chaotic, unpredictable, and powerful. People do crazy things when they must confront their fears, and unsurprisingly, most of the time they turn tale and run. This movie is a Cold War product because it reflected both the Cold War fears of the unknown and American bravery and ingenuity for dealing with an unknown and dangerous power. The movie shows these good intentioned, but violent, soldiers working for their country. They and their reaction to the situation is heroic and exemplary, even in the face of certain death in an isolated and inhospitable location thousands of miles from civilization. There’s even an embedded newspaper man with the troops to shout about the first amendment, free speech, and freedom of the press. Though the film is shot in glorious black and white, it’s really rather red, white, and blue.