First Snowfall In Denver

Over the last month the weather in Denver has been abnormal according to weathermen and natives. One man said to me the other day, with a twinkle in his heartless eye, "it's the first Halloween in sixteen years there's been no snow! Ha! Maybe we'll get summer until January!" Walking off, his wheezy laugh turned more and more into an eerie winter-hating-cackle. I cursed the Tropic gods and beseeched Father winter to freeze the gasoline in his car.

It's true however, that it has been considerably warm and dry for this area this time of the year. The latest recorded snowfall is Nov 21 in 1939, which a local weatherman said gleefully "we're getting awfully close to another record!" There has been a handful of "systems" that have "just missed Denver" letting snow descend in areas just north, south, east and west of here. People find it a blessing from God...I...a personal insult. It is one of the bigger reasons I chose Denver: the fact I was almost guaranteed snow.

So, when the other night they forecasted again another chance of snow, I was obviously skeptical. The day was a record breaking high of 71 with no clouds. Around 7 pm, though, the temperature dropped 15 degrees and later around 8 pm, it had gone from 71 at 3 pm to 38. I made many trips outside to gaze skyward, hoping to see clouds. Nothing. Finally at 11pm when we all went to bed, I checked the temp one last time and it was hovering around 35, yet the barometric preassure had skyrocketed, which is usually an indication that any weather systems are being fended off. Still no clouds. I lost heart and went to bed rather discouraged and remembered one meteorologist's comment about how this could be Denver's record breaking year of high "summer-like temps and no precipitation whatsoever".

It was nearly 4 am when I got up to go to the bathroom. Passing the entryway to the kitchen, I glanced at our backdoor which has a small window covered by a curtain, I took a small detour just to see if maybe Denver's notoriously erratic weather has taken a turn for the good. I pulled back the curtain and saw...nothing. No snow. it was the dusty driveway with some stale leaf corpses tumbling about by a soft wind. I noticed, however, a couple small wet patches and on the hood of our car there were large droplets of water. "Great" I mumbled, "it flurried while I was asleep and now its..." just then like a wandering angel finding its way to bear good tidings, I saw a small white disk float through the wood rafters above and land ever so gracefully on the desolate floor. Its godly little body dissolved...but I didn't let this bother me, I began glancing rapidly about to see if any others were coming also. A gust of wind turned the corner of our building and WHOAHAHOA! a legion of baby angel flakes came blasting their wintery trumpets -my little saviors- stomping beneath their feet the dusty head of Satan (Summer). I felt my knees getting weak, so I ran to the bathroom, did my business, and ran back, rubbing my eyes to ensure I wasn't halucinating. More were drifting lazily down. They were small little flakes that seemed to not want to land, but eddied and waltzed with the wind and eachother's gentle motion. I ran back to bed and immediately woke Naomi. She forced a smile and fell right back to sleep. I too, fell asleep, but only for half an hour. At 4:45 I woke up and put on some clothes, made a cup of tea and went outside. It was DUMPING! And the winds had picked up significantly. I walked around our block, and listened to the muffled sound of flakes landing on roofs, tree branches and grass. One of my favorite things to do is stand beneath the tungsten color of a stree lamp and watch the flakes fly through the small shaft of light, from darkness to darkness. I did this until I was frozen. The temperature had dropped to 25 and the wind was howling through the neighborhood.

I spent an hour at the Starbucks accross the street "reading", looking up every two minutes at the snow whitening cars and roof-tops. It never stuck to roads or parking lots, but all else had a total of maybe an inch or two. Not much, I know, but it didn't matter. It was snow; a fresh reminder of Hope. It was all melted by 11 am, but the temp never got higher than 38 that day, with the sun and all. Unfortunately, we are back to record breaking temps, tomorrow is 65 and the next few days making up to the eighties. Damn La Nina! I took a few pics once every one else was awake (my camera was in the room where our guests were sleeping). So here it is, our first snow...