The Weather Has Me Wondering

The weather in Montana is pretty fickle.  One minute the sun is shining in Helena and the next minute tiny frogs are falling from dark clouds near Clancy, maybe ten miles away. 

Okay, I may need to explain that.

What I mean is that my mother will need to explain.  She told me that when she was a little girl frogs fell from the sky during a rainstorm near Clancy.   I have no way to verify that one now.  I would like to say that she was normal otherwise, but I don’t even know if I can make that claim.

Question: What is the best kind of coat to wear if it is raining small reptiles?

I have witnessed some pretty powerful weather stuff myself.  Once, while standing alongside the Swan River near Bigfork talking with some friends, pretty much a whole pine tree went flying overtop us about fifty feet in the air in a sudden gust of wind.  Just as I pointed and said: “Wow, look at that!”  Trees began smashing to the ground all around us.  I swear, thirty seconds before that, the air was perfectly calm.  We found out the next day that a man was killed only a few miles away by a tree downed during the same microburst.

Another time, I saw a hailstone the size of a baseball knock a robin smack out of the air during a fierce storm.

End of robin.

That storm was not particularly good on roofs or car windows either.

I also recall a day in the middle of summer, when highway crews had to call out snow plows to clear hail from the Interstate highway here in the valley.  Which reminds me: Even down here in the valley, I have seen snow fall in every calendar month of the year.  Yes, even in July and August.

The weather always has me wondering.   Yesterday morning, as example, I went to town without a jacket.   By mid-afternoon I was wondering where I might find a warm and fuzzy parka.

--Mitchell Hegman