Mariah.  What a pretty name for something that can be so ridiculous.  Mariah would be more like a breeze than wind.  I never paid much attention to the wind and winter weather when I lived in Ohio.  Sure, it snowed once in a while, usually a lovely, gently falling snow that brought a hush to the neighborhood.  A snow that once finished could be plowed quickly and off we went to our daily routine.  Wind was not such a big deal.  And then we moved to Nebraska.

I’m pretty sure my first question was, does the wind always blow here?  We first visited in April.  The temp was pretty comfortable – at least it would have been in Ohio.  But with the added wind from the north, the wind chill turned what should have been a lovely Spring afternoon into a frigid winter day.  I remember not bringing nearly enough warm clothes and thinking, seriously – we’re thinking of moving HERE?

After the move and into my first job, which included recess duty, I had one day where it just didn’t feel right.  It was because the wind wasn’t blowing!  It was wonderful.  However, the friend I was doing duty with just fussed about the fact that the wind wasn’t blowing and that it was SO humid.  Go live in the Ohio River Valley and we’ll talk humid.  Of course we moved during the summer, so in our first week there were tornado warnings.  We spent the night looking at a map trying to figure out where all the counties were that were being hit.  Oh, and the back screen door was blown inside out.  I had never seen that before. Certainly an interesting introduction to wind in Nebraska.

Oh, and can we talk about ground blizzards?  I didn’t even know they existed until I moved here. A blizzard in itself is incredible.  When they say you’re going to be stuck inside for awhile, they’re not kidding.  Again, it’s not the snow so much, it’s the wind.  And it doesn’t have to be actually snowing to have a ground blizzard. It’s the wind blowing around all the snow that’s already fallen.  I tried driving from Bennet to Palmyra in a ground blizzard one day.  Almost ran into the back of a semi because I didn’t see it until I came right up behind it.  I try to avoid those now.

So now, after 17 years in Nebraska, I consider myself to be a pseudo weather aficionado.  I not only look at the daily temp, but the wind direction and speed.  I consider where I’m going to be and how far I’ll be walking before I choose outerwear.  Windchill is the real deal here and it’s the one thing that makes winter unbearable.  I can deal with cold and snow, and I’ve even learned to deal with ice pretty well, but it’s that bone chilling, take your breath away, hurt your chest to breathe wind when you step out of the door that’s killer.  It may not be cold enough to get a true Nebraskan to dress in anything heavier than a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt, but I tend to layer in everything I’ve got.

And then, there’s the hair issue. I can spent all kinds of time on the hair, spray it down with lacquer and the second I walk out the door, it flips upside down, covers my face and I can’t see where I’m going until I get back inside.  I would put on a hat but it would end up somewhere in Kansas, and forget using an umbrella.  It’s like the wind laughs at you when you open it up, immediately flipping it inside out.  How is a good southern girl supposed to keep dry in the rain around here?

You know, I’ve heard it’s so windy in Nebraska because Colorado blows and Iowa sucks.  Not very appropriate but it describes the wind here very well.  Just like we’re flyover country, we’re also blow-over country.  There’s no doubt when a  front is coming through because it hits you like a ton of bricks.  I’ve actually been outside when a front hits and one second the wind it blowing slightly from one direction and the next minute it roaring from another and the temp has dropped several degrees.

Right now I’m wearing flannels and a sweatshirt with a throw across my lap and listening to the wind move the windows and bang things around the patio.  I dashed out onto the patio to move my bird feeder so it wouldn’t blow away when I got home and almost froze to death.  As I looked across the way, I noticed a neighbor calmly sitting on a chair on her balcony, wearing a sweatshirt and smoking a cigarette.  A true Nebraskan for sure. And while I’ve been here for quite a while now, that’s the real difference between us.  If the wind ever stops blowing, I know who will be left standing and it won’t be one of those true Nebraskans.  It will be me : )