odd patches of weather

Now, living in the shadow of the Great Lakes, I have much respect for the weather they can generate on the eastern shores as winds sweep out of Canada or the western plains. I'm in one of those lucky places that sees great amounts of lake-effect snow and such. But this season has been crazy!

We have had several late fall tornadoes--and now we can add a January tornado to the list. But this sudden temperature spike has made a mess of things. Temperatures should NOT go from single digits to almost 70 when there is two and half feet of standing snow--on top of which comes three inches of rain over two days. Frozen ground does not absorb water.

So now there is flooding everywhere. My county was under some sort of "level 2 emergency"--I've never seen this designation before (is it a new Homeland Security thing?). All I know is that the southern and western portions of my county were swamped (literally) and people were urged to not drive. Pictures from the area have been all over the Weather Channel.

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I don't know much about global warming. However, I am very certain that seasons now are NOT the same as when I was growing up. We always had snow for Christmas when I was young--the first Christmas without snow I remember was when I was about 16. And since then, snow for Christmas has been spotty. Now I feel like seasons are shifting and leaving winter barely January and February to freeze the bad bugs down to managable levels.

Now, if we have a February tornado, I'm gonna be irked that we've come to the point where Tornado Season lasts year round.

However, what I'd like to see happen in my state: windpower. Enough wind comes off the Great Lakes to power quite a few homes year round. And maybe there would be enough wind power to get us all off of the uber-expensive natural gas heat.