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their team with a standing ovation and were standing at the buses when the team left to return home, congratulating them on their efforts.
Weird weather
This year will long be talked about by farmers and, indeed, anyone who notices the weather.
It began with the second straight winter of almost no snow in the Blue Ridge Mountains, while Williamsburg, on the coast, recorded two snowfalls of one foot each. An unusually warm and wet winter did add much-needed moisture to the soil; however, following three years of extreme drought.
With the spring came the rains, and farmers saw their fields so wet that planting was delayed for weeks. But the moisture was needed, and May’s 7.68 inches of rain was quickly absorbed.
Summer continued the wet pattern, with plenty of rainfall assuring bumper crops of hay, corn and other ctyaps. The only problem, farmers reported, was getting into the fields between storms to harvest the bounty.
In late September, Hurricane Hugo threatened the Southeastern Atlantic coast, and Rappahannock County braced for severe weather when the National Hurricane Center predicted Hugo’s track would take it from Danville north over Winchester — right over the county.
Fortunately for the Piedmont, the storm moved faster than predicted and pushed further west before it was swept north by another pressure system further inland. Hugo spent its fury in central North Carolina and the mountains of Southwest Virginia, and though Rappahannock’s children got the day off from school in anticipation of the storm, the county saw only moderate winds and rainfall.
Winter made an early appearance, giving the county a white Thanksgiving with 5 114 inches of snow Nov. 22. It proved to be a sign of things to come, as December has been one of the coldest and snowiest on record.
As the year ends, the county remains in the throes of a cold wave which has seen temperatures below freezing for the past three weeks, including one week in which the high temperatures seldom ventured from the single digits. The wind-chill factor sent the actual perceived temperatures plunging well below zero.
Sperryville weather-watcher Dennis Wingfield has already recorded 21 1/2 inches of snow this year, much of which is still laying on the county’s hills and fields.
Tourde Trump
In late May the county was treated to an unusual spectacle — world-class bicyclists racing down U.S. 211 from Thornton’s Gap as the Tour de Trump swept through Rappahannock County.
It was one of the stages of the first cross-country bicycle race in the United States, sponsored by billionaire real-estate magnate Donald Trump. Though the race began in upstate New York and moved south before ending in Atlantic City, New Jersey, much of the actual biking took place in Virginia.
Some of the most exciting racing was down U.S. 211, where Sheriff
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