Another Storm . . .

How's this to make the argument in favor of climate change being real?  Yesterday, we had a major winter storm in the fall that produced spring-like temperatures and summerlike thunderstorms along the East Coast even as it produced snow in Ohio.  And New England got hit especially hard, with downed trees and power lines all over the place.

Above is an actual picture of the actual storm.

No power outage here, but it was touch and go for awhile.

Oh yeah, yesterday was the last day of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.  Of the thirty-one tropical depressions that formed this year, only one failed to become a named storm.  Thirteen of the tropical cyclones that formed became hurricanes, and six of those hurricanes reached Category 3 or higher  The last hurricane, Iota, became the first November Category 5 storm in decades and slammed Central America, an area that had already been hit by a hurricane a couple of weeks earlier.  Guatemala and Nicaragua have been set back at least a couple hundred years.  Not that Louisiana, also hit by multiple storms this year, fared all that much better.

And although we have to worry about getting through winter before we start worrying about the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, the almanacs ensure that it's never too early to start fretting about it.  It seems that the Old Farmer's Almanac and the Farmer's Almanac are both forecasting a hurricane threat for the Northeast in August 2021; the only difference between them is that they're about a week off from each other.  I couldn't help but notice, though, that the Old Farmer's Almanac forecasts this hypothetical hurricane to affect the Northeast at almost the exact same time that Tropical Storm Isaias - which had made landfall in North Carolina as a hurricane - affected the Northeast.  So maybe it's just basing its forecast on what happened before.  

Oh yeah, the Old Farmer's Almanac is also predicting a tropical storm threat for the region in September 2021.

And despite predictions of a mild winter for this coming year, there's always the chance of borderline freezing weather that might produce an ice storm.

Even with COVID vaccines becoming available in 2021, we have to deal with a changing climate that no one can provide immunization for.

Most Storms WILL Be Severe!

This post may be the last you see of me for awhile.

The government's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Oklahoma placed my part of New Jersey in an enhanced-risk zone for severe thunderstorms today . . . and it placed my part of New Jersey in this zone two days out.  It is extremely rare for the SPC to forecast such a great potential for severe weather for New Jersey that far in advance.

The risks include torrential downpours, gusty, damaging winds, hailstones (the sort that can break a windshield), and even tornadoes.  As fate would have it, my local utility just finished having the limbs and branches over the power lines pruned, so they don't take the lines down in a storm.  Thanks to the ferocity of the storms expected today, and thanks also to all the rain we've been getting, none of that matters.  Because it only takes one mile-a-minute wind gust to take down an entire tree. And there are supposed to be several such gusts today, if not one big sustained 60-mph wind altogether (can you say "derecho," boys and girls?).

And we might get a tree in our living room.

Who needs a hurricane to worry about?  Oh yeah, a tropical storm that hasn't even formed yet could send its remnants up my way after hitting Louisiana early this week. 

If I'm back tomorrow, it will be a miracle.  So stay tuned.