Autumn, We Hardly Knew Ye
Is it cold enough for you all at the moment? I confess that by
mid-September, I was looking forward to a cool-down. I know: Be careful what
you wish for… and boy, did I get it. Now, I’m bone chilling cold and incredibly
sorry that I dared to “pray to the Weather Gods.” In my case and perhaps
thousands of others, one of the Weather Gods is The Weather Channel’s Jim
Cantore. Mr. Cantore is a notorious cable television weather guru who has no
problem traveling to report from a hurricane to getting buried in five feet of
snow. Note to those “Hollywood South Producers” working down here, Jim Cantore would
make an excellent Weather God in a future film feature.
Since I’m into confessions in this post, here is another one:
We have been robbed of autumn. Who knows, maybe autumn will return during the
next few weeks or even during actual winter? The point here is that autumn was
taken from us and is being held hostage without our knowledge. The real salt in
the wounds is that autumn was briefly with us this year, but was quickly taken
by something or someone called Old Man Winter. Yes, autumn, “We Hardly Knew Ye.”
Autumn was here for about five minutes, then suddenly winter blindsided the
fall season with a series of Arctic blasts.
Indeed this has been a November to remember for the history
books. As of this writing, winter doesn’t begin for more than one month. Also
at this writing is the fact that 49 out of the 50 states are at freezing or
below freezing temperatures. Hawaii escaped the pre-winter wrath while over
half of the U.S. was covered in snow Tuesday morning. On that same morning, Buffalo,
New York was hammered with bone-chilling cold and snow. This is not just an
early “flake-fest” event. We are talking two to three feet of snow in these New
York state areas. Note to self: Cancel those plane tickets to Buffalo today.
One weather forecaster noted, “This is highly unusual for
this time of year…” Note to self again: Hand out the Mr. Obvious Award 2014 to
a certain weather forecaster tonight, and no, this award does not go to Mr. Cantore.
Speaking of Mr. Cantore, would he, his weather colleagues and
scientists conclude that the current U.S. weather pattern is an example of that
climate change so many folks are debating? I’m not sure if he is allowed to
form an opinion on the subject, but it would sure be interesting to know what
his take is on the climate change topic. I’ll probably have to wait for Mr.
Cantore’s answer since he is probably caught up somewhere in a Buffalo
snowdrift.
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