Flying over the central prairie, it’s smooth, perfect, and clean with white snow on the ground on a miraculous sunny day extending as far as the eye can see from my perch at 37, 000 feet. By my measure, we must be over Kansas winging from Houston to Minneapolis, then on home the last leg to Grand Forks. Back home, in northeast North Dakota, we have literally had weeks of below zero temperatures and the 4th most snow total ever through February, so I’m expecting it to look more like polar ice cap the further we fly over the northern plains.

In addition to snow, we’ve had dozens of days of punishing wind chill- this is the actual air temperature (often below 0F) combined with the wind over human skin (it has to do with the inherent moisture of skin) for a “feels like” temperature equivalent. The weather service issues a wind chill warning at minus 40F (which, coincidentally, is also minus 40C- I love that symmetry!). All of this is in the setting of low cloud cover night after night, creating an otherworldly reflectance of street lights back toward the ground- not quite light, not quite night. A few deer poke around the golf course across the street next to the river on occasion, no doubt looking for whatever sparse food is out there. I expect they are brave enough to check out some trash cans later in the overnight, later huddling in the trees for whatever shelter they can find.

A couple of nights ago, for the first time in a long time, there were some open streaks in the clouds in the west, revealing some indigo late sunset skies, like paint splashes on a grey canvas- our daylight hours are so short in the winter, but they’ve been so obscured, I have kind of missed that natural rhythmic addition of a few minutes of daylight to each day starting after the winter solstice. It seemed hopeful and reminded me that in the north, March is what makes or breaks our winter. Even though it has broken through and is brilliantly sunny now as I fly, I know it is still bitter cold, but it won’t be long before migrating birds return, the snow will clear, and we’ll find ourselves around the fire pit, on the golf course, at the ballgame, or enjoying the lake, with the winter of ’18-’19 fading into legend.