We live in Alabama. This time last week, the high was in the low thirties, the sky was clear, and the low the night before was obscene, down around nine. Today, it’s been raining on and off. At least the low last night was forty-five and the high today was seventy. Last night was the first night in over a week where we didn’t leave our pipes dripping to keep them from freezing. I dread the water bill, but I dread the repair bill from frozen pipes more. This has been a two-season week.
One week in March a couple decades ago, which I
remember specifically because Mark had gone out of town that week to a seminar,
we had a four-season week. The first day was cool but sunny. (Spring). By
Wednesday night, it was so warm I suggested to him we take the boat out when he
got back. (Summer). On Thursday, the temperatures were back in the fifties (Fall),
and the weather people started warning us of a weather event beginning Friday
night, which included winter storm warnings with accumulated snow of about eight
inches in central Alabama. The stores sold out of bread and milk in an hour. (For
some reason, those are the essential items in any weather event. The
newer generation doesn’t always understand the concept; Mark stood behind one
young man in a weather grocery store line stocking up on frozen TV dinners so
he’d have something to eat if the power went out. He didn’t feel he could
correct the young man without explaining why he was the only person in the line
with Diet Coke. As Mark told my daughter once, he wasn’t fixing to be* snowed
in with me without Diet Coke handy.) I told Mark about the snow warning on the
phone that night, but we thought there was no way the weather could cool off
enough to dump that much snow. During the day Friday, it continued to get
colder bit by bit. I kept an anxious eye on the door hoping Mark made it
back from South Carolina before whatever was going to happen hit (no cell
phones in those days). But it still didn’t seem ithe temperature could fall enough to dump eight
inches of snow on us. The ground surely was warm enough to melt any snow that
landed.
Never underestimate Mother Nature. Mark made it home
about four that afternoon. When we went to bed that night, the temperature had
plummeted into the twenties and for the first time in our lives we saw
thundersnow, where it was snowing and thundering and lightning the whole night.
Not only did we get eight inches of snow, but it was the first time in the
recorded history of the state that the entire state of Alabama received some
snow accumulation. (Winter). Even Orange Beach and Mobile, which sit on the
Gulf Coast, got at least two inches. I can remember watching the news footage
of the waves from the Gulf washing onto the snow-covered sea shore and thinking
how strange it looked. Saturday stayed bitter cold, then by Sunday we were back
into early spring.
We rarely have a four-season day but it is common
in the spring and fall to have days when we run the heater at night and the air
conditioner in the day. My family first moved to Alabama when I was sixteen. My
mother, raised in Boston, decreed that the air conditioner could not be turned
on until June 1. The realities of Alabama weather took a few years to sink in. As
they did, the June 1 decree crept back earlier and earlier until, like the rest
of us, now there are times when Mom runs the heater and air conditioner in one
day. I won’t even begin to tackle hurricane and tornado seasons; they require
chapters, not posts.
But, and I’ve always wanted to start a novel with
this, there is an eternal quality to the sunshine and blue sky in an Alabama spring
that makes you believe they will stay with you forever, even though you know they
won’t.
What kind of freakish weather do you encounter in your
neck of the woods? How have you used them in your writing?
* “Fixing to” is a Southern colloquialism that means
“about to” but with more emphasis. It is not a mere statement of intent but a
statement of a mission to complete.
