Tag Archives: weather

Of groundhogs and other weather musings

When I was little, the idea that a groundhog could decide if we’d have an early spring or not made perfect sense. The whimsical nature of an animal seeing his shadow or not being a determining factor in the weather was fun, and most importantly, something to take very serious.

As I got older, I decided a groundhog in Pennsylvania could not in any way determine what the weather would do in Texas. So I’d look at the weather on Groundhog Day wherever I was and make my own decision. If I saw my own shadow it meant more winter. No shadow, early Spring. Who cared what PunxsutawneyPhil said, really?

Then I saw the movie Groundhog Day and, of course, the day was never the same again.

It’s been years since I really paid any attention to what the almighty rodent weatherman had to say. This year, though, I jokingly cared. Its been a brutal winter!  I’m ready for warmer temps (but not the tornadoes it’ll bring with it).

Let it be known, Texas cold is different from Tennessee cold. I’ve said it for awhile, but the last two days I was very much reminded of it. The cold snap to hit here as part of the big system that’s taken over much of the US just cuts right through you. I can take 15° in Nashville a lot faster than 30º in Texas. It’s just a DIFFERENT cold. It pierces even the walls of houses, making heaters fight to try to even remotely keep up. (Hence the rolling blackouts that are occurring across the state today!) The heaviest of sweaters that I brought really doesn’t keep me warm. I don’t even want to be outside a minute!

The fabulous Lotus made a blog post last month about how you shouldn’t judge what a person considers cold because its all individual. (I like how she puts it way better, so go read that first. I’ll wait.) I get so amused when someone tells me,  “Oh this is probably nothing to you these days” in regards to the cold. Well, I can definitely tell you that while I feel the heat down here in summer a lot more than I used to feel it, what winter there is in Texas STINKS. I can handle 40º+ better, but you dip any lower than that? NUH-UH!

I’ve not been up to the northern states in winter… okay I’ve not been to the northern states at all… so I can’t say what the cold and snow is like there. But I can say for certainty… I’ll take Nashville’s snow-crazed-stock-up-on-bread-and-milk-cancel-school winter over Texas’s damp, iced (albeit short) winter.

All that being said, I am very glad Punxsutawney Phil says early Spring this year. I think we all deserve some early warmth. Between record snowfalls and crazy temperature drops, I’m ready to be past winter. So thank you dear rodent, I’m going to hold you to your prediction.