Chilly Day at the Park

 

We received a dusting of snow Sunday and Monday, so I took a brief walk in the park. This park is in Bethany, on 50th and Rockwell. 

Gloomy Day

It's supposed to snow late tonight. And get "cold as *#@%!", I believe, is the technical term.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

OKC is 50 and sunny this week, and next week. So this is me, reminiscing about the epic snow and ice storms we had the last couple of Decembers. The cold, danger, and power outages I am not so fond of, but the snow days, fires, and beautiful white Christmases are aspects of that weather worth missing. This picture is from December 2-3 years ago, when we were out of power for 3 days... and out of water, since our apartment complex had to operate the plumbing with an electric pump! Snow > Ice.

Sienna Storm

This is not photoshop - this is real! Fall and spring bring storms to Oklahoma, and I've seen the sky turn all manner of colors: green, red, orange, and weird shades between. This was taken during a storm last week; the orange comes from the sunset shining through the storm clouds.This week is supposed to be another rainy one. Don't feel bad for us - we love it!

Fire!

Soooo, this is what the weather has been like for two weeks. Fire! A "cold front" came through yesterday, dropping it all the way down to 95ish. It's back up again today, and is supposed to be 100ish again next week. So whatever you're doing, stay cool!

I saw someone walking down the street wearing a sweater yesterday. True.

This picture is of Will Rogers Theater on Western, by the way.

Also, this weekend in OKC is the tattoo / body modification convention and the Okie Twist Off, a rockabilly ruckus involving music, cars, and other hotness.

Storm Front

Last Sunday after linner (you know, in between lunch and dinner), I stood in the front yard and took a picture of this lovely storm front. Pretty blue skies and puffy calm clouds to the left, doom to the right. Just behind me was this lovely wall cloud.

After I took these, the sky turned green and it started to rain. I may be an Okie, but I took that as a cue to go inside and clean out the coat closet rather than standing around getting the camera wet. This storm, like the storm we had the week before, produced baseball- and softball-sized hail. The biggest recorded hailstone so far in recent weeks was 4.25 inches diameter! The large hail missed our house by just a few miles; we got the baby size hail. Our town's insurance companies are going to be very busy in the coming weeks.  I know a guy whose car was totaled, and my co-blogger will have to replace her brand new roof. Us, we are unscathed for now, but similar giant hail is predicted for the state tomorrow. I've lived in Oklahoma for 28 years and cannot recall ever seeing this much ridiculously huge hail. If I get clobbered with it, I'll take a good picture for you! (You know, within reason)

Gnome Weather Meter

I don't really want to believe it, but they are giving us an 80% chance of having a snow storm today. Yesterday it was in the mid 60s, Monday it is supposed to be in the mid 60s, but today we are supposed to get 4" of snow.  This, my friends, is the type of craziness we always get here...

And now how to tell weather by gnome-o-meter.

Dawn Rain

One of the things I love about Oklahoma is the storms, particularly the noisy dramatic ones that come in the spring time (sometimes bearing tornadoes). It is supposed to storm tonight, and if it does I will consider it to be spring - it's one of my prerequisites. I took this rainy morning photo from NW 10th st as I was driving to work.

Snowy Monday

 

It's supposed to snow today. Again. And while I have lots of cool pics of the 07 ice storm, this one is of our backyard during the exciting storm we had just two weeks ago. I decided to use this picture because this is an Okie picture blog, and there's not much more Okie than cow skulls. Unless you stick, maybe, a cowboy eating hot chili, or a plate of yummy fried okra or something... sitting next to it... and a sprig of poison ivy. We actually have 3 or 4 of these cow heads.. I proudly brought two of them home one weekend. The hubby looked at me, stunned, and said "...But I was just about to go pick up MY cow heads from Moma's house!!"  Somehow, I managed to marry someone else with a habit of dragging home dead bits of animals - did not even know it until that moment.

Justin Case, an Ice Picture

My friend, Justin Case, and I are auto-scheduling this post for upload on Friday. Here is a nice, icy picture for you... Justin Case I lose power and can't manually upload, you have this nifty close up of a utility wire and get introduced to Justin.

On Saturday, I'll be switching off with my co-blogger (we take weekly turns), so this is toodles until next week!

To ice, or not to ice...

The weather forecast tell us that Doom is coming at some point today (an ice storm, or favorite!). This is one of my favorite ice storm pictures, from one of our milder episodes. This is from the corner of NW 7th and Robinson downtown and shows three buildings built in the early 1900s. The building to the immediate left is Central High School (now an insurance building) and the one to the right is a Methodist church. The gold dome building is yet another church... This portion of Robinson is part of "Church Row,"  where many very cool churches were built from the late 1800s through the 1910s. I enjoy walking this stretch and reading the historical plaques many of the buildings sport.