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The winter storms that have buffeted the nation throughout February have caused record low temperatures, widespread power failures, and untold property damage, claiming several lives. Satellite images recorded last week revealed that at one point, more than 73% of the United States’s landmass was covered in snow.
Arkansas, home to my alma mater and to me for nearly a decade, experienced something that hasn’t happened in over a century: the Arkansas River froze over. A tributary of the Mississippi, the Arkansas River flows east from Colorado into Kansas and then south into Oklahoma and Arkansas, stretching about 1,469 miles to its mouth in Napoleon, Arkansas. Last week, Arkansans in the state’s northwestern corner witnessed several junctions of the river freeze over completely, such as at Barling’s Lock and Dam No. 13.