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Show i Jack-Straws: By Jack yVallis The winter of '78-'79 was one we'll not rget because of its length and ex-eme ex-eme below zero temperatures. So far lis winter has had mjld temperatures ith melting snow storms. The trouble this year has been that le rising temperatures have not seem-1 seem-1 to make any difference in the iating bills, they continue to increase. Last winter during the 62-day period om Dec. 7 to Feb. 7, there were only 15 ays above zero for the low amperatures during the night. On nuary 2 the low was a minus 26 lW agrees and the high a minus 5 in Ver-il, Ver-il, and in Jensen the temperature ile ert down to a minus 45 degrees and in id uray 43 degrees below. This winter er ts had only three recordings of below Id to temperatures, Nov. 29 and 30 both ith a minus 1 and Dec. 27 a minus 2. But even though we have experienced armer temperatures the winter storm at hit last week brought some ingerous driving conditions along ith some snow. Thursday of last week there was lough snow and wind to close almost J of the main higher elevation canyon )U ads for most of the dav. U.S. 40 lt0 rough Strawberry, Daniels and arleys canyons was closed. Indian ca-'on ca-'on to the south, and the Vernal-ve, Vernal-ve, anila hghway to the north, were closer. clos-er. I to regular traffic most of the day. Itif ie problem was low visability caused nt, i blowing snow. Thursday noon had a demonstration of lightning and thunder seldom seen during a winter snow storm. The lightning lightn-ing came through the heavy storm clouds as flashes of light and if it hadn't been followed by thunder rumblings the flashes would have probably been dismissed as an electric light flash during dur-ing the storm. It was snowy all during the weekend slowly accumulating about 6 to 8 inches, in-ches, and then Monday it changed to rain. A warm rain fell during the morning morn-ing hours and melted a lot of the snow, cleaning off the streets and sidewalks and backing up ponds of water in poorly drained areas. . The warm melting rain Monday caused caus-ed a lot of leaky roof problems. Many businesses we visited had buckets out catching dripping water making music as it splashed into the containers. If the trend continues this will be one of the mildest winters on record, and also one which received the needed moisture to see us through the coming summer. If there is such a thing as a "good winter and a bad winter," we would classify last winter as bad and this winter as good. The whole difference is in the temperatures. With January half gone, February will be here before we know it. And then if those March winds can warm up, spring spr-ing may arrive early. It is surprising how warmer temperatures make for shorter winter. We have really enjoyed the warmer winter weather this year. Hope you have, too. |