Bitter cold beauty

Sun dogs, once a phenomenon I rarely witnessed but a few times during the winter, have become a common occurrence this year. Like rainbows, sun dogs are formed by moisture filtering the sunlight. However, sun dogs appear during the bitterly cold winter when sunlight hits clouds of ice crystals and the ice act as prisms. While a rainbow usually signals an end to the rain, a sun dog often means that moisture (snow) is on the way.

Old Man Winter tried to give us a warning of the weather to come as we watched the ball drop from the warmth of our living room as a blizzard howled outside on New Year’s Eve. We had enjoyed a beautiful fall; worried we might not receive any moisture during the winter to make up for the drought that summer had been. January began with record-cold temperatures. Our landscape remained brown and, mostly, snowless because it was just too cold to snow. Cold like only northerners can truly comprehend–daily highs not reaching above 0ºF with 30-50 MPH winds.

Beginning the middle of January, a pattern set in where it would warm up just enough to blizzard nearly every weekend then a deep freeze would set in for the remainder of the week. My children have missed over two full weeks of school with at least an equal number of classroom days being cut short due to early dismissals or late starts. But, we have enjoyed a bounty of beautiful sun dogs!