Spring has sprung

Frank Fusco

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Mountain Home, Arkansas
I do believe the nagging, unusual, cold weather we have been having is behind us. But, in it's place we are having some real springtime rainstorms. Last night and right now, we are having strong thunder bumpers and heavy rain. The little creek down the hill sounds like a locomotive. My shop has water on the floor. (I never sealed around a small pipe coming through the wall) Picking up wifey tonight. Right now, she is on bus coming back from "up nawth" visiting friends and relatives. Not good weather, but better than snow anytime.
 
Some pretty impressive rain today. Still coming down hard. I have seen flooding in places that never were effected in the past. That locomotive little creek is now a class ten white water raging torrent. Pretty incredible. Still preferable to snow.
 
Frank,

we have some early cherries in bloom here, oddly, some pears, some star magnolias, and the croci and forsythia just coming out. Any gardener would say both the sequence and the timing are insane, but I'm not gonna start a fiasco by mentioning the GW word... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
Frank,

we have some early cherries in bloom here, oddly, some pears, some star magnolias, and the croci and forsythia just coming out. Any gardener would say both the sequence and the timing are insane, but I'm not gonna start a fiasco by mentioning the GW word... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

No cherry trees in bloom here yet, but I'm a couple hours north of you. I remember when we lived in Southern Md, in our yard everything would be a few weeks ahead of family and friends yards up in PA. Amazing what only a few degrees of latitude north and just 3 hours drive east up the Atlantic coast will do. Speaking of which... we dodged several bullets this year and for the first time in many years didn't have even one major killer snowstorm. Lots of the country got socked with snow this winter but in SE PA we somehow escaped. One medium snowstorm rolled through and closed some of the schools one day, but was all cleared quickly. I am glad. We still could have a big snow next week or so, but rare, and if it does happen it will all be melted in a day or so. Those of you north of me still could get socked I guess?
 
At least you don't have to shovel rain. We got 4" of the white stuff last night. With the moisture content it was like shoveling mud. Hit 40 degrees this afternoon and all the new stuff is gone. Sure wish this bug would leave. Keep your powder dry.
 
A couple of weekends ago I picked the last of the oranges off the tree in the back yard. There are already little 1" green baby oranges on the tree. The lemon tree is overloaded (but it bears fruit year-round), and we have a lot of new fruit coming onto the loquat tree. The roses were still blooming in January when they got their yearly heavy pruning. I always think whacking a 5' to 8' tall bush back down to 4 or 5 spindly canes about 18" to 24" tall will surely kill it, but as they do every year, they are having a great time, with all the canes covered in leaves already.

I did have ice on my windshield Sunday morning, but that was definitely not typical for any time of year here.

Stay dry, Frank. Sounds like you're getting a real frog-choker. :)
 
It's still raining and more to come. A high pressure front is keeping the warm, moist air from moving east and it is coming right up from the Gulf. We have lots of flooding, folks having to be rescued, roads closed, etc. Not a time to go fishing on the river. Some will try though and some might die for their efforts. Still glad it isn't snow. Our flowers are trying to come up also. First sun and they will pop.
 
Our trees are starting to bud. Our bulb flowers are sprouting and in some case flowering. Living down in the Snake River Canyon, our temps are more moderate than the surrounding mountains and prairies....we've been in the 50's and even over 60 for a couple of weeks now. I saw my first robin of the season the other day.
 
Right now it's...:huh: well I'm not sure what it is. Looks like rain, snow and ice mixed all together, makes one lousy day

No buds here yet, the snow isn't even all melted, maybe in a few more weeks...

Can't wait for spring, and moving my tools back out in the shop.:thumb:
 
I just got back from a friends cabin at the river. He is sweating out getting serious damage. The water is only a few feet from the house now but I think he will be all right. However, the sheriff is using the helicopter to rescue people from a subdivision that is flooded and now isolated. This is worse we have had since 1982. Not as bad but serious. If I haven't mentioned, this is the White River that comes out of the Bull Shoals Lake and dam. It runs many miles to the Mississippi.
 
Still snowing here. 5 minutes ago the snowplow went up over the hill, and yes its blade was down and yes it was pushing snow.

We are not anywhere near flooded...yet, but they are warning about a massive flood. Our snowpack is so deep, especially up north that FEMA is watching the snow melt situation, the ice jams on the rivers and the condition of the dams. The last time this happened people were canoing in downtown Skowhegan. They had a funny picture of a canoe stopped at a red light waiting for it to change to green :)

For what its worth, I am still snowmobiling and unfortunately people are still dying. Last weekend we had another sled go through the ice killing the rider. That is 10 so far this year...about average.

flood87_484.jpg
 
Spring is still sprunging. And sprunging wildly it is. We are still having constant thunderstorms and incredible amounts of rain. Small streams are raging torrents. Both the local lakes (Bull Shoals and Norfork) are within inches of record heights. And, to worsen the situation, the Buffalo River is running record hard because of all the thousands of feeder streams running into it with record volumes of water. And, further up the watershed Beaver Lake and Table Rock Lake are at, or very near, record heights. If those lakes have to release water Bull Shoals will have to release also to maintain a controllable level. This will raise the White River again and do more damage to houses and docks. But, the real damage will come much further down river in the Delta region, or flatlands. These are still under water from earlier flooding, many houses only have roof peaks showing. About 2/3 of the state is affected. We heard the warning sirens and got an alert on our telephones last night about 2 a.m. and headed for our down stairs shelter. First time ever that was necessary. The tornado action did pass south of us. I still haven't heard of there was any damage from it. Much of our local economy depends on fishing and that has been dealt a serious blow because of high waters. East of us, farmers still haven't been able to plant milo, rice, cotton or other crops because the fields are under several feet of water.
 
Way up here in the sticks they are forcasting 8" of snow. Hope everything is ok down there, keep your powder dry.

When that snow melts, it will come down the big Miss. and back up into the White River again. This will exacerbate the flooding that already exists in the Delta.
At our house, we are just fine. High enough above the creek that it could never reach us but still half way down the holler where it is unlikely a tornado would get to us. The hillside house with walk-out basement has a bedroom surrounded by rock. That is our shelter.
There are folks who bought houses on the river with the white flood stage stakes well behind the houses. Now, after flooding, and with no insurance, they are looking for someone to pay for damages. Go figger.
BTW, it is still
 

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Snowing here - north central Nebraska and moving east. Came back home and hunkered in for the duration. Supposed to last until noon tomorrow. Couple inches so far. Temperature dropping for the last 18 hours. Now below freezing.

Where the heck is spring hiding? :( :huh:
 
It seems that Mother Nature must be on the warpath as the weather everywhere is really wild this year in it's back and forth swings. We've had nearly NO rain this year but Wednesday night we got Pounded with EXTREMELY heavy rain for about 30 minutes and a hailstorm that lasted for over 15 minutes with hailstones ranging from 1" to over 2 1/2" in diameter. The Hail part slipped up on most everyone around here, (You just cannot watch the Wx Channel 24/7 and the hail warning came late I think):rolleyes:
Earlier that day, about 225 miles east of here there was a tornado that tore up the airport at Breckenridge, Tx, my old hometown, (you may have seen the pictures on the weather channel).

Unfortunately, the LOML had a meeting Wednesday night, and then dinner with friends at Chili's afterward and the Hailstorm arrived too suddenly for her to get her car to shelter, and the "Pristine Body" of her Mercury Marquis is no longer Pristine, (along with several hundred other cars around town).:bang:

The winds were so strong all day Thursday that I couldn't get up to see how much roof damage we got. Just to show how crazy the weather is, the wind was so strong, it dried everything out by early morning and a MAJOR grass and brush fire got started about 25 or 30 miles west of here and was racing eastward so fast they had no chance of containing it and they had to close I-20 for a while. People that lived in it's path were just grabbing a few essentials and pets and getting out to safety.

Soooooo...Ya'll pay attention to the Weather forecasts and Stay Safe.:thumb:
 
We had a good stretch of weather this week as the temp was into the 50's, but this weekend snow is back in the forecast.
 
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