Weather and growing up in the Sandhills

Here in Missouri we live in a fair sized town of about 5,000 but Cape Girardeau is about 8 to 10 miles from us with probably 40,000 to 50,000 people. There is an actual TV station located in Cape Girardeau. Back in Nebraska, it was probably 80 miles to the closest station, and our reception was fuzzy on a good day. Anyway, this TV station has two weather guys and three weather gals. They all do a good job, but one excels. Recently the better weather person said the storm was supposed to hit at about 12:30 to 1 am. It did. Wind and lightning and rain. Lots of lightning.

Honestly, there seemed to be a constant rumble for several hours. Some were close, and some was distant lightning. There were a couple lightning bursts when there was no time between the flash and the boom. It was close. One can count from the time you see the strike or the flash until you hear the boom and divide by seven, and that's about the number of miles from you. Some were close. Marge was going out to feed the cats, and it crackled some and her and Grace were back in the house right now. We are really careful around the metal-framed high tunnels. Made me think of lightning growing up in Nebraska.

Where I grew up, the only trees were around the houses so if you were sitting on a tractor or riding a horse out doing something, you were the highest thing out there. Perfect spot for lightning to ruin your day. A friend of mine was driving a cow back a few years, and he was on a horse. Lightning killed the cow he was driving. The advice is to lie down in a low spot to avoid lightning, but that doesn't really appeal to me. So what does one do? Not much one can do. Hope for the best.

The weather was something growing up one always needed to be aware of. The most important times of the day was early when the weather came on the AM radio station and the weather at night on TV before bedtime. One needed to know the weather. There was one time when Dad and I were working in the hayfield when it started to storm. Rain at first and wind and then hail. We were on tractors, so not a lot of protection. I remember Dad drove his tractor over by a hay stack. A hay stack was a loose pile of hay about 20-by-20 feet and 16 to 20 feet high. Dad and I got off the tractors and backed up to a stack of hay on the downwind side and we kind of nestled our backsides into the hay. Not a bad place. It was a little itchy but better than being pounded by hail. We got wet, but in a little bit dried off.

Hail in the spring and summer always seemed to be a threat. Hail at times was big and lots of it. At times there were inches of hail after the storm. Not only was it hard on the grass and hay, but it was hard on the cattle. Dad talked about how big hail would beat the backs of cattle and damage what he believed was their kidneys. Dad said he had seen cattle die days after it hailed, and he figured it was from the hail.

The Sandhills where I grew up didn't get much rain. I believe most years they got around 20 inches or so of rain, and this included the snow through the winter. Because of the lack of rain, many years the grass would start to brown in the fall, and in the spring it was brown as well. Storms would roll through with a little rain but lots of lightning. The lightning would start fires and with the constant wind away the fire would roll. The hills were rugged so firetrucks had to be four-wheel drive. Common firefighting equipment was a burlap or gunny sack soaked in water, and just go to beating the flames. No fun whatsoever.

Just another day in the Sandhills.