The Land of Dividing Winds

Ryan Vaughan—who is considered our local weather guy, even though he is based out of an Arkansas station—spent the evening tracking storms as they tore through Little Rock and headed straight for us. I've always joked that weather forecasters—especially those on television—live for this moment. It's the only time they get more than five consecutive minutes on-air.

Having said that, the services they provide today are amazing, and the advances in forecasting technology are no doubt the single greatest reason that fewer lives are lost during storms today than less devastating disasters in the past. The idea that these weather experts can predict, almost to the minute, when a storm will hit a specific community is amazing. Today's technology allows them to see not only the area covered by a storm, but the height of that storm. We live in an amazing age, and to tell the truth, I would prefer watching these live updates than most of the reality shows that litter network television. Sadistic as it may seem, I find myself captivated by these weather events, and it doesn't even have to be weather that directly affects me. Nothing is more educational, and dare I say intriguing, than The Weather Channel during a good hurricane.

In addition to his regular weather updates, Ryan also posts comments and maps in his blog, which can be found here. He explains a lot of what we see on television during these emergencies.

This week's storm, while not as intense as the tornado that destroyed 60 percent of Caruthersville two years ago, still packed a punch. Just like the storms two years ago, weather maps showed this storm barreling out of Central Arkansas headed straight toward Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. And, just like the storms two years ago, this cell of storms appeared to split (or divide) as it hit the Bootheel (that section of Missouri that hangs like the heel of a boot into Arkansas.) In fact, spring and winter storms have a remarkable history of repeating this pattern.

It makes you wonder how storms like these affected inhabitants centuries ago. Similar storms must have wreaked havoc upon the Delaware and Shawnee Indians who originally called this lowland region home. Legend has it that the natives named the area around Kennett (our hometown) Chilletecaux, meaning “land of dividing winds,” implying that many of the storms found alternate paths around the area swamps. Actually, there are a couple of different stories regarding the term (which eventually became the name of the first community here), and while there are probably a dozen scientific reasons behind this area's weather patterns, it's far more interesting to believe the old Indian legend.