A Blast of Winter Cold Is Not that Unusual

It seems we have spent the better part of this winter hearing stories about how rough the weather has been…somewhere else.  Cold, snow, ice, flooding rain; with the notable exception of some mudslides in western North Carolina early this month, all of this has avoided us this season.

Now, the cold arrives.  Bone-chilling cold, but right now, it does not look like record cold….we would need to see some single-digit lows in the Upstate and below-zero numbers in the mountains to make that a reality.  The most recent outbreak of cold to this level and for this length would have occurred in a run from January 22 to 24, 2005.  Sure, it’s not an “every winter” event, but something known to happen in rather recent history.

In fact, I remember that last cold blast…and the stories at that time from people saying “ my (fill in relative here) says we used to have days like this a lot more, years ago”.

There are always some years that are colder than others…and our run of relatively mild winters of late (and what has been a very mild run of weather this winter) has probably skewed our perspective a little bit.  At the very least, we’ve been spoiled by the milder conditions.

Be sure to keep somewhere warm when the weather turns cold, and dress appropriately if you have to spend any time outdoors.  And don’t forget to shelter your pets…don’t leave them outside in the bitter cold.