Friday, April 18, 2008

The Month of Maypril on Our Coast

Welcome to the half-way point in our coast's month of Maypril...the cruelest month of all. It's actually more than a month because it won't let us go until about the 10th day of the month we used to call May. At that time we are jolted from 52-degree air to 95-degree air with 95-percent humidity.

Maypril is the nastiest season on our coast because it loves to mess with our hope and expectations about great weather "just around the corner". Most normal people think of this as the Spring season. The harsh weather is about to dissolve gradually away into glorious, clear and temperate air somewhere we hear.

But alas, there is no gradual progression to such soothing caresses by airy breezes. In fact, forecasters here can relax during Maypril. They need only predict wind direction. Almost every day here the Maypril wind blows in excess of 20-25 knots and often gale force. Wave upon wave of low pressure systems grind off the continent as the days roll past. Northeasters blow up about every week. And yeah, that's salt water ponding on the Beach Road in Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and South Nags Head. (So drive your new SUV through it fool, just like the car commercials on TV. Then take it home and wonder why it's rusting away.)

Carry one of every kind of clothing you own with you every day---from shorts and tee shirts to winter insulated coveralls, from board shorts to 4-3mm full wetsuit with booties, gloves, and hood. You can sample any type of weather here during this hybrid month.

The beauty in it though, is having a head-high to overhead swell every week for the past 4 weeks. That's right Maypril, give us the left hook and then your right jab. Give the dolphins their wave playground and pound the sand on the bars into molecules. Show us your passion. Then pull us all through your keyhole into the sweltering summer lull. Maypril on our coast, is the cruelest month of all.

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