Just finished a gruesome yet fascinating book called The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin. Well researched and quite descriptive, the book tells of the storm that wreaked havoc on the open prairielands; Minnesota, North & South Dakota, and Nebraska. The storm was so powerful it even affected Texas and Mexico. It was a wake up call to the immigrants who had so excitedly settled in the midwest. On January 12, 1888 a cold front that had been travelling from Canada hit the midwest and was so deadly that in a matter of hours the temperatures plummeted; In Kansas, 29 degrees in seven hours; Iowa 55 degrees in a matter of eight hours; In Nebraska 32 degrees in 13 hours and so on. The storm was so deadly that people and animals froze in their tracks. The book tells of the many stories of teachers, parents, children as they tried to brave the storm or find loved ones who may have been out doing chores or at school. The eerie part is that January 12 started out as a quite mild day; the first one in a while. It was, for many, a veritable "heat wave." The book is called the Children's Blizzard, and this is where the gruesomeness comes in, because once the storm passed many children were found frozen to the ground. Many children had been in school that day because the weather had been so nice and they tried to make it either to their home or a warmer shelter, warmer than the schoolhouse anyway. The estimated death toll was around 500. Adults and children lost limbs, died of cardiac arrest, or froze together (literally). Of course people wanted to place blame and while the very new Signal Corps weather indicators (the name was a precursor of weather forecasters) was partially to blame, it's an eerie reminder that mother nature does strike (as she so violently did recently in MS and LA) and people should be quite aware of where they live and how weather can and does affect them. It's a fascinating book and if you have any interest in weather it's a must read.

tv update: I had too many shows to watch and I've already dropped the shows CSI, Bones, and Grey's Anatomy. As my spouse says, "It's only tv."