Runners in shorts and tank tops. People wearing flip flops, eating ice cream. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought it was the middle of July. I couldn’t reconcile the scene in my mind with what was coming the next day.
Twenty-four hours later, it felt like mid January with people donning hats with pom poms, puffy winter coats and snow boots. Those pesky weather forecasters had been right after all.
What’s that old saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute, it will change.”
Nothing could have been truer this week on the Front Range of Colorado. So true in fact, that Denver set a record high and record low within 8 hours of each other.
On Wednesday, our Indian Summer day, the high reach a balmy 83 degrees in Denver. By Thursday morning, we were in the icebox — plummeting to 13 degrees.
A massive 70 degree temperature swing. According to local news, the second biggest temperature swing recorded in Denver’s history.
I’ve lived a lot of places around the country — California, Texas, Washington, DC, New England. I’ve never seen these huge swings of temperature like here in Colorado. You literally have to bring a whole separate wardrobe with you to work, just to ensure you don’t freeze to death on the way home.
I asked my husband, the meteorologist about it.
“I don’t understand how that happens. How can it feel like summer and then we’re in the North Pole?”
“When the cold air sinks north from Northern Canada, there’s nothing to modify the cold air or stop it.”
“Does this happen anywhere else in the country?”
“Yeah, it can happen in the Dakotas as well.”
“I guess that makes sense since they are due north of us — kind of like on the XY axis.”
I didn’t mind the cold that much though, because it brought something else with it — snow.
Bryon and I try to guess the first snowfall each year. My pick this year — October 10. Nailed it. Apparently, that fits with our trend as Bryon keeps observations on these things. The majority of our first snowfalls happen in the first two weeks of October.
Snow represents to me the promise of winter and sliding on the snow. Even though, consciously I know the temperatures will warm and up the snow will be long gone.
Winter means the coziness of a fire burning in the stove. Wearing fuzzy sweaters, eating soup instead of salad, and embracing the cold air as you walk out the door in the morning. And it means it’s time to change out the tires to winter snows.
Give me winter any day over 90 degrees, where I feel as if I will melt and turn into a puddle.
Yes, yesterday was a sign and a promise from Mother Nature — winter is coming.
