Tales of the Big Winds

...just snuck out to grab the newspaper...

I recently took part in a discussion about wind in New Mexico at the City-Data New Mexico Forum. It all started when someone in Las Cruces complained that they were in the middle of their annual two weeks of big wind. I couldn't resist answering:

Gosh, I just read about you poor guys with a couple of weeks of wind to endure and the tears are still streaming down my windburned cheeks. Tears of laughter. Tears because one of our 60 mph gusts whisked my cat up into the top of the neighbor's tree last week. Can't use a ladder, those all blew away. The current plan is to wait until the wind shifts and hope she lands back in one of our trees this time.

Like wind? Come on over to Little Texas, here on the High Plains. The winds start in November and end in...umm, not sure when they end. The early morning suburban streets are filled with groggy folk in odd pajama outfits who just snuck out to grab the newspaper, only to find that it has blown away down the middle of the road. It's the one time I'm assured of seeing who lives in the neighborhood and what they wear (or don't) at night.

I know people who keep their false teeth in their pockets most of the time, just in case. My glasses actually blew right off my face yesterday. I bent down to retrieve them and realized I was behind an SUV that was about to back out and over me. It was like a Laurel and Hardy movie. Luckily a really big gust lifted me six feet south, just in time to avoid being another parking lot fatality.

We all have something called "the Clovis do" on our heads because we know better than ever combing our hair until we get inside of wherever we are going. People with toupees make fast friends with the duct tape dealer here.

Only once did I make the mistake of sweeping up the sidewalk after mowing. Now I just wait a minute and it all goes over to the neighbor's place and on down the block.

Don't like your dog? Put him out back in the yard and he'll just blow away and find a new home. Don't like your husband? Wait for one of the really big gusts...

The following answer was posted by a concerned reader in Michigan:

Hello from Saginaw, Michigan:
I never laughed so hard as I did just now reading your description of what the wind does in your state. After a really hard day at school today (I am a substitute teacher working on her retirement this May), I thought I would never stop laughing at your descriptions. They are truly hilarious. Either someone like me who is used to some wind but not that kind of dust and the snow.....especially this year...... it is truly refreshing to hear a description about N. Mexico. Thank you for making me laugh. You have a great sense of humor. But I do cringe at the thought of a animal being tossed into a tree. I love animals so I don't like to hear things like that. I hope the cat survives, also.

Of course, I needed to set the Michigan lady's mind at ease:

I have to admit that I might have exaggerated just a tiny little bit when I was carrying on about the wind. My glasses DID blow right off my face, and the Clovis [hair]"do" IS a thing to behold. Cats blowing away? Welllll... you got me. All my cats are safe and sound and haven't been airborne for weeks. I just couldn't leave you worrying.

I am very excited to read that you are retiring from subsitute teaching. Talk about scary stories--I'll bet you have plenty. I retired from being a school librarian last year and plan to have a big anniversary celebration on May 17th commemorating the last time I was ever shut in a classroom with a mob of eighth graders. They were way scarier than any big wind.

Except for maybe tornadoes. We're apparently right in the middle of tornado season, and we live only 18 miles from the beginning of Tornado Alley. We have frequent tornado drills with the dogs and cats and they all know to head right for the closet, where I read cautionary tales like The Wizard of Oz to them. They love all the parts about Toto.

Crazy Wind

Soil going to Texas

The wind has been howling now for two days. It is blowing a solid 35 mph with gusts up to 50 mpg. I “tuned” my windows by opening them just a crack to make the sound even more dramatic, but I shouldn't have done it. Tiny particles of dust are now floating in the inside air, and there is a gritty coating on every surface.

There is drama enough outside. Yesterday a field caught fire and by the time the wind wound down after sunset, 22,000 acres had been burned. This fire jumped the four lane highway between Clovis and Portales, while fire companies from surrounding towns used their equipment and even some tankers from nearby dairies to fight the flames. I was out in the wind in the afternoon, taking pictures of the good New Mexico soil blowing east on its way to Texas, and I watched as a big piece of plastic tarp just hurtled across a whole field—it must have gone 100 yards in practically the time it takes to tell it—so I can imagine the speed of those wind-driven flames.

Dust Storm, Colorado (Library of Congress)*

Driving to Las Cruces from Arizona several years back, my husband and I were almost caught in a severe dust storm just outside of Lordsburg, NM. The highway signs there say Warning—Dust Storms May Exist, Next 17 Miles, but there isn’t a big enough warning possible for what we saw approaching the highway from the left. It was a sky-high cloud of dark brown, gathering up more and more soil from the fields it crossed as it headed for the highway. We had no idea what the right thing to do might be, but we did know that we didn’t want to get caught in that absolutely frightening thing while either driving or stopped along the highway, so we made the almost instant decision to try to outrun it. As we sped through the valley, we could see cars stopped any which way on the other side of the divided highway. It was apparent that another storm had just passed through and caught them. I saw a figure running wildly down the fast lane, arms outstretched and mouth wide open in terror. I had just that glimpse as we hurtled forward and got to the safety of some nearby hills.

Dust in the air inside (click on photo)

Listening to this wind, I think about what it might have been like to live during the Dust Bowl years. Here are a few web sites with amazing Dust Bowl photographs and other information about dust storms.

Dust Bowl Photographs: http://www.weru.ksu.edu/new_weru/multimedia/dustbowl/dustbowlpics.html

Dust Bowl Information and Photos—the second picture shows a dust cloud much like the one that almost enveloped us: http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/dust.html

NASA Photos of a dust storm as seen from space: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=6220

Voices from the Dust Bowl: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html

Wind and Dust Storms across the Southwest (explains how dust storms are formed): http://www.srh.noaa.gov/elp/swww/v8n2/Wxbul8.2.8.htm

*Dust Storm, Colorado: The Library of Congress does not believe that there are any restrictions on the publication of this photo. If you know of any, please let me know via the comments section.