White Christmas in Osage County

This photo taken atop Mt. Sequoia in Fayetteville, Arkansas January 2007 is nothing compared to the blizzard we endured in northeast Oklahoma this Christmas eve. Governor Brad Henry declared a statewide emergency as blizzard conditions existed over much of the state. I drove to Pawhuska at about 6:30 pm to try and pull out a friend's vehicle. Little did we know that this would turn into a four-hour ordeal. According to the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, parts of Osage county received between 3-5" of snow on top of sleet and winds sustained at 40 mph gusting to 60 mph. We experienced whiteout conditions with visibility of less than 100 feet. The winds built snow drifts at least three feet deep. My Nissan Frontier was no match for the conditions in spite of its 6-cylinder supercharged motor and 4-wheel drive. I was buried in a ditch off State Highway 99 in no time at all. Three full size 4-wheel drive trucks attempted to pull us out and two of them soon became stuck as well. After digging for two hours, the outlook was bleak to say the least. By 9:00 pm it was 18 degrees Fahrenheit with a north wind of gusting up to 50 mph and wind chill indices as low as -10 degrees Fahrenheit. After more than two hours of digging and pulling, we had gone nearly 1/4 mile in the ditch. I was soaking wet and experiencing the first signs of hypothermia when our vehicle finally emerged from the 3' snow drift. By this time, parts of HWY 99 south of Pawhuska were beginning to drift shut. We passed numerous abandon vehicles on the return trip to Wynona. By the morning of Sunday, December 27th many roads in town remained virtually impassable. For weather data and statistics from around the state visit the Oklahoma Mesonet web site at http://mesonet.org/