Oklahoma (and Texas and Kansas) where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plains…and man did it ever!

Around here people joke that if the wind ever quits blowing, everything will fall down…..

The wind does tend to blow in these parts.  Even so, you would be hard pressed to find any event that compares to what we saw this past Wednesday, especially in December.

Over a million people without power across the Midwest; over 400 thousand acres burned by wildfires in Kansas alone; “snownados” (I guess they really are a thing) and the first ever December Tornado recorded in Minnesota.  One source with the National Weather Service told news outlets that “It’s an unprecedented event. We have people who’ve been working for us for 30-plus years, and they had not seen something like this before.”

It was a crazy day. 

NASA has a neat video of the storm on radar that you can watch here.

Experts right now are hesitant to say that this event was caused primarily by climate change, although both this event and the string of tornadoes that tore through several states last weekend were fueled by record high temperatures and had roots in the changes in the jet stream that caused the extreme storms in the Pacific Northwest earlier in the week.  The bottom line is that the wild weather we have seen all year just keeps on coming.

So, what do we do about it?

You can’t control the weather (obviously).  All you can do is try and prepare the best you can for what might be around the corner.   As I have harped on several times, it might be a good idea for all of us to take a little time and analyze just how ready we are for extreme weather events. 

Have you taken steps to “harden” your farm and ranch to wildfires?-There is a lot of good information from our partners at OSU and K-State here and the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture put out a good checklist earlier in the week. 

Do you have a drought plan?-You might want to check out some of the drought resources at NRCS here and some helpful tips from the Oklahoma NRCS Staff here and here.

Have you thought about cold weather snaps like we had last February? -We wrote a blog about getting cattle ready for winter earlier this fall and there is a great video from OSU Cooperative Extension you can check out here. 

When it comes to wind or other extreme weather, what action, if any, are you taking?-Farm Progress has some great tips from “Husker Home place” here.

I know I sound like a broken record, but an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.  Our weather IS becoming more unpredictable.  We need to take a little time and better prepare for extreme events because what we used to consider as extreme seems to be turning more and more into the new “normal.” Don’t believe it? Just wait a few weeks and see if we have another crazy weather event somewhere in the country.