Old Man Winter returns

Today Old Man Winter returned to West Texas with a vengeance, dropping over 4 inches of snow in the city of Lubbock alone before 10 am. North of Lubbock received even more snow. Schools, many businesses, public libraries, and city offices were closed for the day. The inconvenience of all the snow will eventually be greatly appreciated in the form of moisture once it melts.

This area of West Texas finally got off of the national drought chart's abnormally dry ranking.

What's the drought been like? Lubbock's normal annual rainfall is between 18-24 inches.
2011 - 5.86 inches
2012 -11.43 inches
2013 - 12.61 inches
2014 - 22.56 inches

Fingers crossed in 2015 we will continue to receive normal rainfall and not fall back into the drought cycle.

Meanwhile, I'm rather bummed that the cold has killed off the flower blossoms on my 2 year old plum tree. The daily yo-yoing of temperatures in January-February from freezing to summer warmth is normal and unfortunately causes plants and trees, especially fruit trees, to start leafing out far too early. Guess there will be no plums again this year. All the rose bushes were heavily leafing out too but those will rebound by late spring. Ah, well, some moisture, even if it's ice cold, is better than none at all.