Snowtastic!
We’ve been snowed under here in the DC area. Snoverkill, Snowmegeddon, kaisersnowze, Snowtastic, Snoprah…http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=pagansaintand-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0590673106&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
We have about 30 inches in my backyard and its snowing again now, blizzard conditions expected this evening.
People out west and our northern neighbors make fun of the DC area’s inability to deal with heavy snow. However, in our defense, this rarely happens. Take a look at the historic records and the seven year pattern — and then read what Laura Ingalls Wilder had to say about the seven year snowstorm pattern in “The Long Winter.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/02/making_history_snowfall_record.html
This article describes the DC area records for heavy snowfall about every 7 years…
“The chart also shows that in the past two decades, we have been getting our big seasons every seven years (not the case in the 1980s and 1970s).”
From Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter:
“What was that about seven big snows?” Almanzo asked. Pa told him. The Indian meant that every seventh winter was a hard winter and at the end of three times seven years came the hardest winter of all. He had come to tell the white men that this coming winter was a twenty-first winter, that there would be seven months of blizzards.” (Wilder, p. 62).
Hmmm…Similarities? Of course, she was in Dakota territory, not the east coast (or Arizona). And this particular chapter, “Indian Warning,” is probably fictionalized. Still, I wonder if it is all a coincidence or if there is a seven year pattern?