Monica and Paul White, of Tulsa, walk through Woodward Park with their dogs Baxter and Eddie on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. A light snow fell on Wednesday night in the Tulsa area and morning temperatures were below freezing. JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World
I was sitting with my friend Spencer at a place on Cherry Street, watching the Thunder game and minding our own business when I looked outside and what do I see? Snow! Like, a pretty heavy spell of blowing snow!
We
knew there was a chance of it, but as the day progressed, and the cold front dipped further and further into Oklahoma, forecasters realized that there was probably going to be a better chance for it than they expected.
It started out as a 20 percent chance before forecasters finally upped it to 90 percent, which was nice of them because a peek outside could have confirmed that forecast.
By the time the snow ended, just about as quickly as it began, the ground and cars were covered, but streets were clear.
OK… let me back up. When I say “covered,” I mean covered like a tablecloth over the grass. Officially, Tulsa had 0.5 inches of snow. That was
about standard for this southwest to northeast strip. Parts northwest had more and parts southeast had less. The winner, I guess, was an inch of snow in Ottawa County.
Confession time: I love snow. Aside from the giant pain it can be, it is a nice, sometimes pretty way to break up the doldrums of winter. The half inch we had here was just enough to transform the landscape for an evening and be gone in a couple days.
Also, it’s kind of a love-at-a-distance thing. It’s pretty to look at, but again, dealing with it is a burden.
Just ask Alaska. We got excited about half of an inch. Anchorage is on track to have the
snowiest winter there ever. What does that mean? That the largest city in Alaska is on track to have more snow than the winter of 1954-55, when 132.8 inches of snow fell.
Haha. 132.8 inches?! That’s 11 feet. That's a foot shy of two of me.
Cordova, Alaska, is about 150 miles to the southeast of Anchorage. So far, they’ve had 172 inches of snow, or just over 14 feet.
Speaking of Cordova, here’s this:
Right? No thank you.
So when we have our big snowstorm in a few weeks (The Magic 8 Ball just said “You may rely on it” when asked if it will snow more than 12 inches here in the next 30 days, and it has a pretty good track record…) just remember that we aren’t in Alaska, it will probably be 60 degrees a week later and everything will be fine.
Probably…
--Jerry Wofford
