I say it every year, "the weather this year is the weirdest I've ever seen", and every year it gets weirder. This past February was one for the record books around the country and it will probably only last for another month before more records are set.
Ski resorts are backwards this winter. Wilmot in southern Wisconsin should look like the picture on the left this time of year, instead it announced that this past Sunday it was closing for the season because they have no snow. Mammoth, in the middle, and Big Bear, on the right, here in California just got a fresh dumping of feet of snow this weekend and will likely be open until the Fourth of July. Since we moved out to the desert in southern California in 2016 our winters have been nuttier each year. This winter was by far the gloomiest winter since we moved here.
Meanwhile back in our old home town of Chicago February was a record month as they had more days in the 70's then we had here. We actually had people escaping our winter by going to Chicago. This is nuts. Central California had back to back days of tornado's this past week, they average one every five years or so. Then over the weekend while the Sierra's were being walloped with ten feet of snow the valley had rain and winds, and I'm not making this up, of 190 MPH. A hurricane category five, which is a devastating hurricane, has minimum winds of 157.
We had a tropical storm come blasting through here this past summer that caused much damage to many neighbors homes and yet this weekend with our sustained winds of over 40 MPH our house had more damage to it than during the tropical storm. Yesterday I picked up so many pieces of palm trees that I could have glued them back together and made a nice ten foot tree.
Earlier this winter we had a solid ten days of rain and not the nice gentle variety that is helpful to replenishing the ground water, no this was rain that looked like a fire hose was turned on for six days. We had water pooling around the house so fast I was thinking of building an arc. There was so much rain this winter that all the lakes and reservoirs that had been drained from the past three years of drought were now over flowing and the state is trying to figure out how to save the excess water for future years.
The two pictures on the left are one lake here this winter with last years same lake showing almost empty. While the two on the right are pictures of "ghost lake" as it has been for years and what it suddenly turned into this year. Just crazy.
California is not the only place experiencing crazy weather to be sure. I mentioned how warm it has been this winter in the Midwest while the Pacific Northwest has been hammered with rain and cold. The East coast has had tons of violent weather while the South has been dealing with roller coaster weather patterns and the Southwest is battling wildfires. There is no longer any denying that there is something going on with the climate as we are seeing changes all over the country.
I point all this out not to make any political statement or take any sides, I'll be long dead before the world is a complete disaster, so for me it is just a nuisance to deal with right now. I'm waiting for us to get several inches of snow here in the desert and then that will force me to flee to someplace where I will not have to worry about that happening again.
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