* 2 am is the time Sunday morning when we change over to DST (Daylight Saving Time). You will gain an hour of daylight in the afternoon/evening, but you will get cheated out of one in the early morning. Advance and set your alarm before you go to bed unless you want to get up at 2 am and reset your clock to 3 am and go back to sleep. Regardless, you are going to lose 1 hour of sleep Saturday night. You might wake up a bit groggy Sunday morning. In my opinion and ONLY my opinion, Alabama is more attuned to CST. I know all of the little biological elements in my little body are happier on CST.
* 7 is the number of inches of snow measured in Oak Mountain State Park last Sunday. The measurement was at Pea Vine Falls. It was measured correctly by taking several samples. In the Blizzard of 1993, i measured the depth at 10 or 12 places in my yard and averaged them to get 17 inches. There were 2-foot drifts, but we threw those out of the measurement. When I went down the front steps to take those measurements, I became airborne and landed flat on my back in one of those big 2-foot drifts. It created a crater that looked like the top of a volcano. A couple of Center Point firemen, including my son, were parked out front. They finally got me out of the crater. Interestingly enough, that summer, not a single dandelion would grow where I hit the ground.
* 2407 feet is the elevation of Mt. Cheaha–the highest point in Alabama, but there are a lot of other places that are almost as pretty. In NE Alabama, Bogan Peak rises out of the flat country near Weiss Lake due east of Gaylesville. You can go east on Couinty Road 9 in Cedar Bluff and turn north on a small side road and get close to the 1660-foot peak. Actually it is a SW to NE ridge that extends into NW Georgia.
* 55 is the County Road number that goes through Rabbitown in NE Calhoun County and continues into Cleburne County passing through Grantley and on east to the community of Oak Level. Never been there, but I want to see Grantley. We have a 33/40 weather watcher there who often has the lowest temperature in the state on clear cold nights. From my topographic maps, it looks like an awesome drive.
* 1894-foot Mt. Weisner is a stand alone mountain (not a part of a ridge) in SW Cherokee County. You can see it from a long way off. It is a delightful scene.
* 180 thousand acres is how big the Bankhead National Forest is in NW Alabama. It is a land of ridges, deep gorges, waterfalls, and hardwood forest. It contains the Sipsey Wilderness area sometimes called “A Land of a Thousand Waterfalls.” There are deep lush canyons. Indeed, you can find giant Eastern Hemlock trees in one of those canyons–a rarity indeed.
* 92 degrees was the hottest in the USA yesterday at Gage, Oklahoma. (I forgot this was a weather blog instead of a geography blog.) Interesting to note that it was freezing at daybreak so that was a 60-degree climb.
* 15 below zero was the coldest down here where 48 states are friendly with each other. In Alaska, it was 31 below at Arctic Village. In good old Deadhorse, the wind chill was 45 below and 53 below in Point Lay, Alaska.
* 60 inches was the snow depth this morning at Nome, Alaska and 45 inches at Valdez.
* 0 is how many times I have bought bottled water, seen a college or NBA basketball game in person or worn my glasses in my hair on top of my head. I also score zero on iPhone.
* 1000 feet is how high a surprisingly strong tornado spewed snow into the air on Tipanogas Divide high in the Wasatch Mountains near Provo, Utah. It became a big white cone. As it dipped down and made contact with snow that was 38 inches deep, it plowed a path 1/4-mile wide and almost a mile long. It snapped off 1-foot diameter trees like they were kindling wood. It so happened that two weather observers were at that spot checking snow pack and snow depth with those automoated gauges. They got a short warning when their dog, which had been busy chasing porcupines, suddenly dove under a sheltering pine tree. It was below freezing all along that tornado path. I have in my little fingers, a yellowing news clipping from the Salt Lake Tribune describing the event. It happened on a December 2. I don’t know which year.
* 15% is the approximate relative humidity in an average heated American home in winter. That is drier than the Sahara Desert. Six is how many more times men are struck by lightning than women (approximate).
* 120 drops is how many drops it takes to fill a teaspoon.
* 60 seconds is how long it would take you to freeze to death if you were outside and lightly clothed when the temperature is 70 below zero.
* 132 days is the average number of days Kerich, Kenya gets hail each year. This is believed to be the highest frequency in the world.
FINAL THOUGHT: I was at the far end of Deerfoot Parkway yesterday for a routine check. Our family doctor is in that facility known as Deerfoot Internal Medicine. While there I was pleased to learn that they depend heavily on a variety of weather information from ABC 33/40, including TV, the 7-Day Planner and our Weather Blog during severe weather. The receptionist, Linda Dorzis says that she is becoming a weather geek and even studies the GFS models! Maybe I should go there to get medical attention and also learn something about the weather. I try to learn something new about the weather every day so I hope I can live to be as old as Moses.
