Honey, We're Moving to New Bedford!

I know, I know ... global climate change is a bad thing.  People in the Southeast have been hammered by severe weather.  Some midwestern states are under tornado watches right now while others are under fire warnings.  The Northwest is experiencing significant snowfalls as I am typing.  Those are only the weather extremes that are happening in this country;  global headlines this winter have been truly unbelievable.

So with the utmost respect to all those that have been suffering through these difficult conditions ... today was great!  Holy moly!  If this is global warming, well I feel like firing up the coal powered Humvee and taking the scenic route to the pastures so I can feed the cows some broccoli.

I know that human driven climate change will lead to dramatic shifts in weather patterns, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, mass extinctions, increased difficulty in feeding our growing population, and the forced migration of huge numbers of people.  As a counterpoint, however, I would like to offer some weather data collected in New Bedford during the month of January:

OK ... too much data for a typical American reader to digest.  Fair point.  Let me give you the SparkNotes* version by zooming in on just the recorded temperatures and indicating the times when the high reached or surpassed fifty degrees:

The weather has been amazing this winter.  I kind of regret going through all of the trouble with our snow tires back in November.  There was only one time that we needed them, and that was the storm that hit a month before I put them on!

Don't worry, my snow tires were warm and dry when I took this picture.

This was the only real snow we had during actual winter months:

That was on a Saturday, January 21st.  If you look back at the data, you will see that it hit fifty-two degrees the following Monday.  One weekend of winter, with very limited snow tire application.

So I'm taking the tires off tomorrow.  For the rest of you, that means hunker down.  We can't get away with such a string of fair weather.  Ned Stark might be a head shorter, but "Winter Is Coming."  (If you are aware of that reference, then it could not have been too much of a spoiler.  If you have just ordered Season 1 on DVD ... sorry.  Peter Dinklage is quite good.)

So I will enjoy the flowers and sleep well knowing that my snow tires will be unsullied by the next big storm.  (another Game of Thrones reference there, but you need to read the books for that one.)

Oohhh ... flowers!

PS - Goose dies in Top Gun.

*SparkNotes are an electronic take on the ubiquitous "study guides" sold under the title of CliffsNotes.  People who use SparkNotes often live in a mixed state of sloth, procrastination, and moral haziness; they have Internet access; and they have never heard of Wikipedia.