WHERE THE HELL IS WINTER?

It has been raining all day today and is forecast to rain all day tomorrow.   The rain doesn’t bother me – I actually like being in the house with the rain drumming on our metal roof while I read, sleep or use the computer (retirement is a tough act.)   But the thing that does bother me is the warm temperatures.

   Last year at this time we had day temperatures in the teens and twenties with two feet of snow on the ground and snow events happening about once every week or ten days.   This year there is no snow and the temps have been ten to fifteen degrees above normal all month and the next fifteen-day forecast is predicting more of the same.   When the temperatures are high thirties to mid-forties it is too warm to use the wood stove and so we are using expensive oil to keep house temperatures comfortable.

I miss the snow: I love the snow.   We live in western Maine because we like the four seasons.   We are willing to endure mud season and bug season because we know fall season and winter season are to follow. 

We lived in Florida for a couple of years and there were no markers to changing seasons – I much preferred the twenty-four hours of daylight and twenty-four hours of darkness in arctic Alaska to the monotony of the never ending summer time of Florida weather. 

This is a crazy weather pattern and I hope it doesn't become the norm.

the Ol'Buzzard

  

FORTY DAYS AND NIGHTS OF RAIN

So far we have had three days of torrential rain here in western Maine, but there are still thirty-seven more to go to match the Biblical downpour.   It makes me wonder if Pentecostals are beginning to sing and dance and talk in unknown tongues, and lining up for the Rapture.  

Did you ever really consider what cataclysmic event would be required to drown the entire earth in forty days and nights of rain?  

We have mountains here in western Maine just shy of four thousand feet in elevation, and that is small for many ranges.   It would have to rain one hundred feet a day during the forty days and nights in order to cover these mountains and drown the people of Rangeley, Maine.  That amounts to approximately four feet an hour.   At four feet am hour rainfall the atmosphere would be so heavy with water you would drown just by breathing.   In other words, God probably wasted thirty-nine days and twenty-three hours of rainfall during his rage against mankind. 

But, fundamentalist people continue to believe verbatim the story of Noah and all the other fables of the Bible.   These people are as dirt ignorant as they are enthusiastic for their religion.

However, they are also enthusiastic voters. 

the Ol'Buzzard