We'll pay for this

Recent weather, plus that forecast for the near term, has been unseasonably warm around here. We foresee one of two options playing out. Either

1. Once astronomical Winter joins meteorological Winter, onslaughts of arctic cold and excessive snowfall will raise the Pain-In-the-Posterior Index (PIP) to astronomical levels; or


2. Climate disruption will proceed to make meteorological mincemeat of much of our remaining seasons next year. Floods and/or droughts, year-round Seasonal Affective Disorder or perpetual sunburns, food shortages and transportation disruptions will beset us. Perhaps most distressing, we could be faced with a walleye opener with lakes still ice covered. Remember, there was almost no tracking snow this deer season.

All because some of us were praying for, and received, relief from the unseasonable cold, cloudy weather we experienced in late November and early December.

Christmas Eve is one week away. Will we have a brown Christmas? The MNDNR calculates, via Paul Douglas' weather blog, that the odds are good for most of our North Country. But those probabilities are most likely based on the "Old Normal."

Coffee Talk Winter Patio

Photo by J. Harrington

We don't think anything we're giving, or getting, requires snow to be enjoyed. In fact, since there's going to be a fair amount of local travel on Christmas Day, we think a lack of snow might be just fine and we find that we're not alone. We were really surprised at the number of folks we say walking around the Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis yesterday when we visited Birchbark Books. Between what we bought for ourselves, including Robert Bly's Collected Poems, (we couldn't resist) and the knowledge that the Better Half also bought some books for us, perhaps we should be wishing for a sequence of blizzards as an excuse to just sit and read. Nah, instead we'd like to sit on the patio at Coffee Talk in Taylors Falls and drink coffee and read outside, but not when there's snow cover. Upstairs might work fine, but not if travel is treacherous to get there.

[UPDATE: Polar vortex could unleash winter wallop by January. Stay tuned!]

Ode to a Blizzard

By Tom Disch

O! wonderful for weight and whiteness!  

Ideolog whose absolutes  

Are always proven right  

By white and then  

More white and white again,  

Winning the same argument year  

After year by making the opposition  

Disappear!  

O! dear miniature of infinity with no  

End in sight and no snow-  

Flake exactly like  

Another, all  

A little different no  

Matter how many may fall,  

Just like our own DNA or the human face  

Eternal!  

O! still keep covering the street  

And sidewalks, cemeteries, even  

Our twice-shoveled drive,  

And all that is alive,  

With geometries that sleet  

Will freeze into Death's  

Impromptu vision of a heaven  

Wholly white!  

For we know who your sponsor is, whose will  

You so immensely serve,  

Whose chill is more severe  

Than any here.  

Though his name may be unspoken,  

His commandments are unbroken,  

And every monument that you erect  

Belongs to him!

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