When Shelby (FIL) was alive he'd get on his big camouflaged coat when it got this cold. He said the wind would blow three days after a front and by golly he was right as rain. It's been blowing here three days, very stiff and way below average temps. My wind chimes only tinkle on a north wind and they have been telling the news. And sticking your nose out of the door was like getting slapped with the cold. I'm one of the elderly they talk about and have been sick too. The north of Mississippi has been an ice sheet and life has stopped for a while. It's been too harsh to travel unless absolutely necessary up there. Hurricane generators and chain saws. Down here on the coast, it has just been cold and windy. I'm very thankful that until the last couple of nights it hadn't really frozen any standing water.
The wind blowing from the north for three days does one thing and that's drive the water south. All the little water courses, bayous, river, beaches and marshes get an extended period of low water levels. This is probably the lowest I've seen ever. The harsh wind has driven the whole Gulf south. This is I-110 loop in Biloxi and you can get an idea if you know the area. To the left is the Gulf and normally it's like 4ft of water under the loop there.
Photo: Bobby Campbell, Biloxi MS
The awakening has begun already. The daylight will increase an HOUR in the coming 38 days. And yes, it is cold on this coast but there is already pollen collecting underneath my water bottles on the patio. No wonder my sinuses are in sad shape. And yes, the cold snap killed the flowers on the Japanese magnolia but they'll reappear. Probably next week when it gets into the 70s.
The full moon was golden and bright in the clear sky last night as we came home from the beach. We were getting ready for a bridal shower. I remember once Bob Thompson and I went to Mobile to get a muffler for his MG. It was COLD and we almost froze in that drafty convertible but the sight of that full moon coming up over I-10 on the way home has stuck in my memory for 50 years. It must have been this time of the year. We sat by the old heater in our house and thawed out when we got home.
In that vein I lit a fire in the fireplace last evening. I had hoped the front porch would benefit from the sunshine and be warm, but the wind was off the water from the SW and the water is cold, making it uncomfortable. The fire felt mighty good and I found a piece of cherry in the stack to make it smell good. I only had one shot to get it going and no fat lighter, but I stuffed a paper bag full of twigs and buried it underneath the wood. Viola! I was out and in dealing with restoring water service after the cold spell. No damage thank goodness. It ain't fun crawling underneath the old lady soldering pipes. I made sure to warm my hands and backside in between trips to check everything.
The wind off the water was COLD. This short season is not the time to be sitting on the porch with a southerly wind. The water is cold and the wind will cut you in two if it is from that direction. There still wasn't much water in the bay but it steadily rose on the SW wind and the bar out front that was sticking above everything was almost covered by the time we left.The bar will disappear underneath the water for good soon, until the north winds of next year, and sucker in unwary boaters I'm sure. In a few days we'll have a wedding shower and another gathering of different parts of the family and those being grafted in. It was looking mighty nice inside when we left.
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