Armageddon Again

We thought we'd been spared.  Although the Northeast and the Midwest were expected to get thunderstorms today and tomorrow, they were expected to be no big deal.  Now? They're a big deal.  Another cold front, another chance that "a few storms may be severe," another chance for gusty winds at a mile a minute, hailstones the size of baseballs, and lightning that hits the ground.  This is the sixth time my area has been under such a threat this month.  Nothing so far as I type, and the sun is out, but appearances can be deceiving.

The most recent forecasts that are available as I write this suggest that central and southern New Jersey will likely get worse weather than northern New Jersey, with the absolute worst weather from this cold front hitting Ohio and West Virginia and slightly less dangerous storms affecting Philadelphia to Richmond along the Interstate 95 corridor.  But even the threat of severe weather is enough to get one worried.  I have since learned that there were severe storms that affected Passaic County, New Jersey, to the north of where I live, and and Union County, to the south, in the last couple of rounds of severe weather.  The severe storm that hit Passaic County caused the electricity to go out for awhile in at least one town right over the county line from Essex, my county.  Just because we in Essex didn't get hit doesn't mean no one in northern New Jersey did, nor does it mean that we in Essex will be lucky this time.  If we are, there's always . . . next time.

As I have already said, summer thunderstorms were once welcome antidotes to heat and humidity, but now they've become something fear as if they were hurricanes.   One thunderstorm in 2013 in Manahawkin, New Jersey, near Barnegat Bay, was described by one local resident as a storm that did more damage in half an hour than Sandy did in half a day.  Bear also in mind that tornadoes have touched down in New Jersey, which means that a future version of The Wizard of Oz doesn't have to be set in Kansas anymore; Dorothy can now come from Bergen County and sing about somewhere over the George Washington Bridge.  One of the effects of climate change that's supposed to have an impact on New Jersey is the potential for an increase of tropical-style downpours; that's already happening, and then some.  But then, we're lucky; at least that solar storm that could have set civilization back two hundred years missed the earth two years ago.

I write about the weather because it gets my mind off foreign affairs.