Weather, or Not category archive
Road Hazards 0
It is generally considered unwise to drive in a blizzard. I had to do it once and it was one of the scariest experiences of my life.
Mind you, it wasn’t a blizzard when I started out. We broke up our meeting early to beat the snow, but the snow won. Somehow, I made it home in my Chevette–a half-drive that took an hour and a half–where we remained snowed in for the better part of a week.
Sadly, we seem to be nearing peak unwisdom.
Afterthought:
I was living in Arlington, Va., at the time. That was the storm in which a jet crashed into the Potomac.
Decorated 0
Ubuntu MATE with the Fluxbox window manager. The wallpaper is from my Christmas collection.
I have been having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Part of the problem is that it’s been a year of lousy news, but I think an even bigger issue has been that the climates they are a-changing. When the temperature’s in the 70’s, it just doesn’t seem very Christmasy for these parts.
For Pete’s sake, I drove to the recycling center with the top of my new(er) Mustang convertible down a couple of weeks ago.
In December.
(I must admit, though, that the last few days have felt a bit more like winter late fall.)
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
Historian Alfred McCoy is not sanguine (and I fear believe that he is far more right than wrong in his predictions).
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
It looks like Cape May and Wildwood, where we used to vacation when I lived in the Philly area, are doomed have a less than propitious future.
In these parts, spring and fall have almost disappeared. From being a matter of months, they have become a matter of weeks.
When I was a young ‘un, growing up not far from where I write this, temperatures would gradually get cooler from September to November, usually with a bit of Indian summer around Thanksgiving. Then the cold weather would set in. Frosts were common from late October on.
No more.
We haven’t had a frost yet, and, last week, I drove the recycling to the recycling center with the top down on my car. And that warm day was not an exception.
This week, we are wrapping ourselves in down, but we still haven’t had a frost.
I fear we are well past the tipping point.
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
Science 2.0 looks at the data. It ain’t pretty.
More depressing data at the link.
The Climates They Are a-Changing . . . 0
. . . and, after looking at America’s response to the COVID pandemic, AL.com’s John Archibald is less than optimistic. An excerpt from his article:
Profits always trump prophets, and we’d rather kill each other than do what’s required to save us all.
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
While northern California is in flames, elsewhere in the state, small towns are running dry. Here’s a bit from SFGate’s report:
And the fire department has asked sheriff’s deputies to keep an eye on the hydrants in response to a report of water theft.
“We’ve grown up in this first-world country thinking that water is a given,” said Julian Lopez, the owner at Café Beaujolais, a restaurant packed with out-of-town diners in what is the height of the tourist season. “There’s that fear in the back of all our minds there is going to be a time when we don’t have water at all. And only the people with money would be able to afford the right to it.”
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
Rebecca Watson reads the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change so we don’t have to.
She fears that our (initially inadequate and, in some quarters of our polity, inimical) response to the COVID pandemic provides a preview of our response (or lack thereof) to global warming.
The Climates They Are a-Changing 0
Mendocino, California, a popular tourist spot, is running out of water.
Some hotels are charging extra for daily linen replacement and hot tub use, and other businesses are considering portable toilets to conserve water.
Most water had been purchased from Fort Bragg, a town of about 7,300 people whose primary water source is the Noyo River. But as the river’s flow has diminished, officials shut off the supply to Mendocino this week to safeguard supplies for its residents.
There’s been talk of shipping in water by barge to deliver to Mendocino and other cities in need on the southern Mendocino Coast, transporting it by railway from the inland city of Willits and trucking it to the coast from Ukiah in wine tankers.
Follow the link for the full report.
