* 0 is how many minutes of sunshine Birmingham got during six days in a row, December 21-26, 1972. Narry a minute for almost a week!
* 1,044 is how many forest fires occurred in Alabama in October, 1952 during a major drought and heat wave.
* 40,324 acres of woods were burned in Alabama during that October (1952) In manyplaces around the state, visibility dropped as low as 1/2 mile because of so much smoke in the air.
* 40 to 50 days in a row is how long many South Alabama communities went with no measurable rain during that terrible 1952 dry spell. By November, record low river stages were reported on the Lower Alabama, Lower Cahaba and Conecuh Rivers.
* 136 degrees is how hot it got in Cherokee, Oklahoma on July 11, 1909. Mind you, that was at 3 o’clock in the morning! It was caused by a “heat burst” during a collapsing thunderstorm. The temperature was not official because if it wasit would be the highest official temperature ever in the USA–topping the record134 in Death Valley, California. During that heat burst, the sudden extreme heat softened and peeled paint off of houses and cooked apples on trees. A lot of cattle were killed.
* 62 feet is the average depth of Lake Erie. It is the shallowest of the five Great Lakes and also the smallest in size.
* 52 is how many large wild geese were killed by lightning in flight over Elgin, Manitoba on April 22, 1932–a week after I was born. They tumbled to earth. They were all picked up and distributed to townspeople for goose dinners. Lightning is frightening. I don’t know if any of the large geese fell on rooftops and possibly crashed through to someone’s bed while they were taking a nap. (If so, I sure would liked to have seen the look on their face)
* 643 trillion gallons is how much water is in the Gulf of Mexico. That will grow as massive flood crests now rolling down the Mississippi enter the Gulf through New Orleans.
* 39 feet is the forecast flood crest on the Mississippi at East Baton Rouge by next Monday morning. It was at 32 feet this morning. If the river reaches 40 feet, the protection levee will be topped by the river at the LSU campus with extensive flooding of the camus and surrounding area.
* 22 below zero was the coldest in the “lower Four Dozen” states this morning. It was at Presque Isle, Maine where they have had a winter to remember.
* 32 inches of snow on the ground at Caribou, Maine this morning.
* 186.3 (let me repeat that, 186.3) is how many inches of snow Caribou has collected this winter. That is an all time record. Previous was 181.1 inches set in the 1954-1955 season. Their snow records date back to 1939. If the rest of this snow season is exactly normal, Caribou will wind up with a season total of 200.8 inches–a “bit more” that we received in Alabama.
But remember, life goes on, snow or no snow!
