Mother Nature Giveth and Taketh

Mother Nature always seems to remind us of who is control ultimately. Generally speaking, in the winter of '07-'08 she allowed all of us that enjoy winter sports to feel pretty darn good.

Perhaps Mom detected us feeling a little cocky about all the fun we had last winter and decided it was time to put us in our place. In early June we were deluged with over 5 inches of rain in a 2 hour period. July brought the entire QC area a hammering from what is termed a "Derecho". A derecho by definition is a long lived straight-line windstorm associated with band of rapidly moving thunderstorms. The word was coined by Dr. Gustavus Hinrichs, a physics professor at the U of Iowa, in a paper published in the American Meteorological Journal back in 1888. By definition winds in a derecho must meet the National Weather Service criterion for severe wind gusts (greater than 57 mph) at most points along the derecho path. I doubt that anyone in the QC would question that criteria as we experienced sustained winds in excess of 95 mph. September had to get in on the act also as we received almost 10 inches of rain over a 3 day period.

Bottom line for us at the ski area was extensive damage to our snowmaking pond, dike, and dam that served as our source of snowmaking water in the winter. Nothing that a $40,000 project couldn't repair. Unfortunately, we were lucky compared to some of the anguish that other residents had to deal with in the aftermath of the derecho.

What does this winter have in store????????? Stay tuned. I have been looking at a bunch of long range forecasts and I will share my thoughts in a few days................