We had a meteorological anomaly occur here in Texas a couple of weeks ago. We had some arctic air from Canada push south and give us 77 degree (Fahrenheit) high temperatures in July. Now, up until then, I had never considered myself a fan of arctic air from Canada. Polar vortex, anyone? However, here in the swamps of East Texas, July generally brings with it highs in the upper 90s (Fahrenheit), and when you add in our humidity, that’s pretty rough.
Of course, the upper 90s are nothing compared to what we’ve been gifted with in August and September here these last few years. Remember Tropical Storm Lee, that left most of Texas burning? Yeah, minus the fires, that kind of drought and heat is our normal August and September. So I generally don’t complain about the upper 90s in July, because as hot as that is, it ain’t nothing to a Texan.
So when we got that arctic Canadian air a couple of weeks ago, I got all happy. In the pants. I did the happy dance. My happy dance scared the neighbors, so I had to come inside and dance with my dog. Thank heaven she is used to me, and just wagged her tail because she knew that a treat would be forthcoming after I was dizzy from dancing with her.
Then the arctic air retreated back to Canada where it belongs, and we went back to business as usual. Until I saw something weird on twitter. One of the weather geeks I follow tweeted a picture of a map of the USA that showed east Texas in a blue blob next week. While 86F may not seem that cool to a lot of people, here in the swamps of East Texas, a forecast of 86F on August 1? Does not happen.
Except it just did. And it has me shopping for puppy treats so I can get my dog to do the happy dance with me.