FARGO — "Giants in the Earth" by O.E. Rolvaag and "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder are two literary examples set in our region in which a very late spring blizzard plays a prominent role in the plot. Both books are fiction, but Ingalls Wilder's book is at least based on the author's childhood memories.
The presence of this type of storm in literature shows that the big storm this week is not nature gone wrong, but instead is a part of our standard climate and happens often enough to be used in literature based in our region. The Northern Plains and Upper Midwest is a region with a climate that is prone to extremes. Yes, our winters can be cold and our summers hot, but it's the variety that really defines this climate, like when all the winter snow melts early and then we get a big blizzard weeks later. In our climate, we should expect the unexpected.
