Weather, a wonderful thing to observe

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Ten days ago, we experienced some nasty cold weather, with official low temperatures hovering between 8 and 10 degrees below zero and wind chills as low and 30 and 40 below. What prompted me to write this column is the way those figures were used to promote the climate change argument.

During this recent cold spell, I read several stories with headlines that referred to a record cold Christmas. Those headlines were simply wrong. Christmas of 2022 and the few days preceding it were not close to the record low. The stories that went with the headlines were accurate. They stated that this year’s cold was the lowest in almost 40 years. The story was accurate; the headlines were fraudulent. 

We see large inaccuracies in weather reporting for several reasons. Some news organizations are simply trying to attract more viewers and readers so they can charge more for their ads. A television organization — 10 days or so before Christmas — predicted 15 inches of snow. That was laughable.

Another problem with accuracy stems from the fact many news people are so young. The coldest December on record — in most places around the country — was in 1983. People born in 1983 are going to turn 40 this year. For someone to remember the bitter cold of 1983, he or she would have to be close to 50.

A third reason for the failure to report fully and accurately on the weather is the left’s climate change madness. We have had crazy weather for ages. The climate change crazies want you to believe all the bad weather has come in recent years, but that is not the case. Between 1976 and 1983 we had some of the most remarkable climate events in history. At the age of 81, I recall many of these incidents vividly. 

Of all the cold weather I can recall, nothing compares to Christmas Eve of 1983. While many residents that night had readings of 20 below and lower, the official temperature was 19 below, and that was combined with a 60 mile an hour wind, to produce a wind chill of around 80 below. Official records for the county were kept at the Freedom Weather Station, which was operated by Velma (Flukie) Niewald, whose records showed not only the 19 below shown above, but 20 below on Jan. 17, 1977, and again on Jan. 10, 1982. These latter temperatures were not accompanied by 60 mile per hour winds, nor did those cold temperatures last as long as in 1983. The National Weather Service at Columbia reported record lows on Dec. 22 through 25, 1983, and nine straight days that month with sub-zero temperatures. 

December of 1983 is the coldest December on record. But the following two months were relatively mild, and the three winter months combined were only the sixth coldest winter on record.  

Three straight winters in the late 1970s produced vicious weather. January of 1977 saw the record of 20 below zero. January of 1979 had snow on the ground for the entire month. Those winters produced prodigious headaches for school officials, students, parents and farmers.

The Jan. 10, 1979, issue of the Osage County Observer stated that the county’s three school districts had already lost as much as 12 days of school. On Feb. 14, the Observer said Fatima had lost 15 days of class time and would be holding classes until May 25, with Chamois also holding school that late in the year. 

Farmers during those years were confronted with the loss of an incredible number of calves. Sub-zero weather ranging to 15 below was common. I’ve never seen figures that estimate the death loss for baby calves, but it was devastating. The losses were so severe many farmers started trying to calve later in the year to avoid the brutally cold weather. Even calves that survived sometimes paid a price. Their ears were frozen and later dropped off. It was common for years after that to see cows that did not have ears. They often went by the name “frosty.”

The 1976-1983 period also saw some extremely hot and dry weather. The summer of 1976 was very dry, but not as bad as 1980. The all-time high temperature in Missouri is 118 degrees, set at Warsaw and Union in 1954. (You might find it interesting that Warsaw also holds the state record for cold — 40 below zero.) A number of times in 1980, that 118-degree record was approached. Hundreds of people died from the heat. The National Weather Service reported that 300 people died in St. Louis because their homes and apartments were like ovens because they boarded up their windows to protect themselves from criminals. That is something I’ve personally read, but I doubt if it would be possible to locate that story today. The crazies do not want facts like this to come out. They want you to think those folks died as the result of climate change. 

In this county thousands of turkeys died. If you think there is any exaggeration in this, ask any turkey grower over 50 years of age.

Wrecker operators probably thought January of 1979 would never come to an end. George Hollandworth, the owner of George’s Standard Service in Linn, was quoted in the Jan. 26 issue of the U.D. as saying that he and his son Lynn, were “on the go” for the entire month. The Hollandworths hired two people to help drive their wreckers. In one 24-hour period they received 50 calls. While many customers could not get their cars started, most were stuck in the snow and needed to be towed. George said that the chains for his wrecker were worn out and needed to be replaced, but chains were not available anywhere, even in St. Louis and Kansas City. It would be interesting to know how many people born after 1980 do not know what chains are.    

Not all significant weather-related stories deal with extremely cold, hot or dry weather. Unseasonable weather can also have a profound impact. There was such an occurrence in the first week in May of 1976. It was at the tail end of the turkey season. I went turkey hunting that morning and dressed the same as I did the morning before, when it probably didn’t get much below 50 degrees. Big mistake. I could only take a few minutes of that and called it quits. Later that day I learned why I couldn’t handle the cold. The grass and trees couldn’t take it either. Grass suffered terribly and the hay crop that year was decimated. All of the trees on low ground had their leaves freeze, die and drop off. The leaves on trees at the top of hills survived. We have a hill at the farm that rises an estimated 300 feet from the river bottom. Draw an imaginary line on that hill at the level of 200 to 250 feet and you’d see all leaves above that line survived, while everything below was dead. It wasn’t just our farm that experienced this, it was all over central Missouri. Sorry to say, I didn’t get a picture. But I suspect people who were teenagers at the time recall it, especially farm kids. No one knew what to expect at that time. Would the trees produce new leaves? The answer was yes.

The rest of 1976 was farmer-unfriendly. The summer was hot and dry. The hay crop was almost non-existent. On Christmas Day we fed the last bale of the hay we put up that summer. From then on, for us and for a lot of other cattle folks, we fed prairie grass hay that had been trucked in from Kansas. The trucking was done by B.A. Mantle. All B.A. charged for was his diesel. He used a flatbed trailer that Huot Brothers provided free of charge. B.A. and the Huots are all dead, but Donnie Mantle was one of the young men who drove that truck to Kansas. He recalls the story.

Weather is a wonderful thing to observe. It can produce amazing surprises, but also boring repetition. The climate change crazies will tell you the climate is changing because of people. The fact is we have always had climate change and will always have it. The crazies are just as wrong on climate change as they are on big government, deficit spending, inflation and defund the police.

 Never trust a crazy on climate change or anything else.