New Title for Lower Laguna Madre Winds
So it isn’t the first time, since being stationed on South Padre Island, that I have found neighbor’s doormats in the region of my front door. The long walkway on the third floor faces east-west. And sweet doormats with sayings reading, “Hello Summer,” arrive at my door – up, down and rolled up like an enchilada on days when the wind blows and shifts with no mercy. Yesterday was one of those days.
While I was editing this time lapse, my phone began to ding with text messages showing giant snowflakes falling in North Texas. “Yeah, I’m not complaining,” I said to myself in regard to MY weather … I’ll just say I am, “observing.”
JANUARY OBSERVATIONS
The Lower Laguna Madre in January begins to set the tone for how a Lower Laguna Madre winter is remembered. The Winter Visitors see the end approaching to their brief stays, and speak in relief, “… well, it doesn’t look like we’ll get a winter this year. We had icicles last year.” They hope the clock runs out – without winter scoring any points. It leaves them with a better feeling, in their minds and bones, about the Lower Laguna Madre.
As a group of people dependent on the outdoors, we begin to calculate; what if we don’t get a “real” winter here (where you are too perhaps) in the Borderlands? It has happened before, it happens more, and we have been slapped silly in February and March as well. Basically, we walk up to the weather bar and the bartender asks, “What’s it going to be?” In reality, the weather bartender already knows what he will be serving up, and knows we have no choice in the matter. It could be a frozen margarita. It could be a hot toddy.
Because of the shallow topography in the Lower Laguna Madre, a day like yesterday swished the hypersaline bay like swill in the bottom of your glass. First, it blew water off the East Bay, and then in a matter of a few hours, it blew it right back in again. There is no need to “imagine” a wind like that, you can witness it all winter long on the Lower Laguna Madre. If you have never seen it? It is truly impressive.
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