Longtime local journalist Bill Radford and his wife, Margaret, live on 5 acres in the Falcon area with chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats, a flock of parakeets, goats and two horses. Contact Bill at billradford3@gmail.com.
Who’s Dreaming of a White Christmas?
By Bill Radford
Not me; our five-day streak of snow in November gave me more than my fill of the white stuff for now.
I can’t say that it was the biggest snow I’ve seen in our dozen years on the prairie. There’s always the bomb cyclone of March 2019, which saw my wife stranded on Woodmen Road for 12 years. And I remember at least one other storm that made it necessary for me to carve a path through the snow to our chickens. Still, this November snow ranks up there, both for length and overall snowfall. (I always say I am going to keep a weather journal but I never get around to it.)
So how much snow did we get? I saw a 72-hour snowfall total from the National Weather Service that listed 19 inches of snow in Falcon and just shy of 28 inches in Peyton. But that didn’t cover the whole five days. I would say at least 2 feet in our neighborhood.
It was enough snow statewide for the governor to declare a state of emergency. U.S. Highway 24 was closed for a time all the way from Colorado Springs to Limon. Snow piled up enough on our dirt roads that our son got stuck just trying to get out of our neighborhood; luckily, our indispensable neighbor Loy used his tractor to get him unstuck — and to plow some of our roads before the county plows could get to us following the last wave of snow. On Nextdoor and Facebook, there were plenty of calls for help — and plenty of offers of assistance, from people like Loy with tractors to teens armed with snow shovels.
Reaction to the snow on Nextdoor was predictably mixed, with some worried about getting to work and others welcoming a snow day (or multiple snow days).
“It hasn’t snowed this much this early in YEARS!” one person posted. “I’m loving it, but then I work from home. Stay safe out there fellow Coloradans!” (I’m one of those who can work from home; unfortunately, fiber and the resulting higher-speed internet have yet to come to my slice of the prairie, so working from home can be a bit torturous.)
Nextdoor provided a handy tool for people wondering about road conditions. One person, however, set off a bit of a firestorm with this “friendly reminder.”
“If you can’t drive in snow, stay home or find someone who can,” the person posted. “Driving 5-10 mph on a major road makes you an obstacle and a risk to others, not just yourself.”
Some people agreed. “Know your limits and if you are too scared, it’s OK, just maybe don’t go out,” one person posted. “You need to go faster than walking speed to get traction and not get stuck,” another said.
Others bristled at the idea that it was fear and not common sense that kept them to a certain speed.
“Considering that many roads are closed, and many cars have gone off the roads, driving 5-10 mph is a very appropriate speed in these conditions,” one person replied.
“I’ll drive whatever speed feels safe at the time,” another person commented.
I generally agree with that sentiment. On the first night of the storm, I had to venture out at dusk to get to the pharmacy for some just-prescribed pain meds for my wife, who was recovering from knee replacement surgery. I wasn’t going as slow as 5 mph but did not probably go above 20 mph on the icy roads, which was slow enough that I had a truck right on my tail on Garrett Road; after slip-sliding on a patch of drifted snow, I turned my hazard lights on and the motorist behind me finally backed off.
Our chickens stayed holed up in their house for most of the five days — and the original of our three roosters almost didn’t survive. Rooster A, as we call him, somehow got his foot trapped and Rooster C, a rooster from our recent crop of teen chickens, decided to go to the head of the pecking order and attacked Rooster A while he was largely immobile. We were able to nurse him back to health, however, and after a few days indoors he was able to fend for himself — and convince Junior that he still had plenty of fight in him.
The storm — deemed “historic” by some — did bring some good news. Most notably, it eased drought conditions in southern Colorado and the rest of the state. Following the five-day snowfall, nearly 60% of the state was free of drought, KOAA and others reported; that was a 15% improvement over conditions before the storm. And for us, it eliminated concerns for now about the need to water our trees. (After a full week of melting, some snowdrifts remained around our trees and lilac bushes.)
So what kind of winter will it be? According to the experts, it appears to depend on how much of a La Nina weather pattern develops. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Weather Outlook shows it’s a toss-up as to whether most of Colorado will have above or below normal temperatures and precipitation.
