One morsel of information I've gleaned from reading source material concerning the last Little Ice Age was just how extreme the weather can become during a period of rapid climate change. In a short amount of time, conditions can go from warm to cold, from wet to dry and then back again without seeming rhyme or reason. What was once thought to occur over decades can occur in just a few short years. Only in a rear view mirror that stretches back centuries can one discern that indeed there was indeed a pattern to it all.
Are we at the very beginning of another
great change in the natural order of things? I don't know. I do know
that in just the last few years it has seemed to me that something is
not quite as it should be. Winters have been milder with the spring
coming much sooner than I remember it. Storms that sweep through the
Midwest seem to have acquired a harder edge, with tornadoes occurring
much more frequently and further to the north. Drought conditions
like those seen in Texas have become more common only to be followed
by flooding rains the next season. Wild and wacky is how I would
describe the state of the weather.
This March has followed the pattern
with killer tornadoes spawned in multiple states in the first week
only to be followed by record breaking temperatures in the second.
Now, as we approach the official start of spring, the rains are
coming. A deluge of as much as eight inches is forecast to fall on
parts of my state as a slow moving cold front interacts with very
moist air fed from the Gulf. Mixed into all this wetness will be the
isolated tornado that should keep everyone on their toes. Hold onto
your garter belt Mildred, it only gets more interesting from here!
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