No longer keen on late night parties, my wife and I have not witnessed the arrival of a New Year for quite some time. Last evening, however, at the stroke of midnight, I was awakened from sleep, not by the sound of firecrackers but by the rattling of windows and the roar of wind through the barren trees.
After a few days of spring-like weather, a cold front pushed through central Missouri as 2011 gave way to 2012. The balmy conditions of last evening, including the day's high of 61 degrees F, were suddenly retreating to the south as strong, northwest winds dove in behind the front. Not yet subsiding, they have dropped our temperature by 20 degrees and are producing both a wind chill in the teens and a reality check for those of us in the Midwest.
No doubt, some saw a message in that midnight front, an omen of danger for the coming year. But, while the winds arrived in concert with the calendar shift, the calendar itself is an arbitrary creation of human culture, not directly associated with natural events and requiring adjustment every four years. From a naturalist's point of view, the front arrived about nine and a half days after the winter solstice, the true start of nature's year.
