Record Weather

This post is about a month late, it is true--but I wanted it part of the blog for my own journal purposes.

This picture was taken mid-April. Typically this is the week when we are raking leftover fall leaves and "fluffing" our grass with the rake to get it to turn green. This year we were still under snow. Sam decided to shovel the garden free of the snow so our strawberry plants could start their revival and so the ground would thaw in time for our Memorial Day planting.

I've mentioned a couple times how we were getting close to record-breaking snowfall--and I'm pleased to say that we got it! We had 134.5 inches of snowfall this year down at the airport--so we had quite a bit more than that fall in our own yard. (Based on the snow accumulation in the paper, and what was actually in our yard, I would say it was at least 50% more. For instance, the airport would report 2 inches on a day that we received 3-4 inches in our yard.)

As we were getting close to the record, I really wanted it to break through to the snowiest winter on record. It happened that the snowfall record was broken while I hosted my Easter Egg Hunt. So it served me right that it snowed on my own party.

But the main reason I wanted it so badly was because I was 13 years old in Phoenix when it was 122 degrees, still standing as the hottest day on record in that town. On that day, I decided to ride my bike to the corner gas station, and I bought a caramello bar. I rode home with it in my hand instead of eating it at the gas station--and when I got home it didn't look anything like a caramello bar. It was a melted mess, and I was burning up. It wasn't until the evening news that night that I learned we had just experienced the hottest day Phoenix had ever seen. Here's a cool piece of trivia--the date was June 26, 1990 and if you add the numerical values of the date 6+26+90 then you get 122. I remember my best friend's mom often wore a shirt about having survived the hottest day in Phoenix--she hated the heat of the dessert, and wore that shirt with pride!

So there you have it. I was in Phoenix for the hottest day they have on record, and in Anchorage for the snowiest winter they've ever recorded. And just for the record, I don't feel compelled to survive any more weather records.