USA Today Headline on 8/13/23:
FARMER’S ALMANAC PREDICTS COLD, STORMY WINTER FOR OHIO THIS YEAR.
And now, back to reality…the Midwest, including Ohio, saw one of the mildest winters on record. Temps were consistently above average with January running 75% of the highs and lows above the normals and February just about the same. Even March “came in like a lamb”–to quote an old saying. And, in our area, we saw about half of the typical snow load for the winter. The landscape came alive about a month ahead of schedule. Yes, climate change can be beneficial. The problem is that the rising temps will not stop. Meteorologists are calling it an “earth fever” and bemoan the long term effects. Politicians talk the talk but never really walk the walk. As soon as a weather catastrophe falls off the front page the TV talking heads move on. The weather forecasters in our area always try to make conditions as dire as possible. The questions are: are they that incompetent? or are they trying to cater to their advertisers? or are they trying to pump up their own importance? Their answer is: we predict the worst case and hope we’re wrong. The problem with that is: people change plans, cancel events and re-arrange their lives around a forecast. Just give it to us straight; we’re all adults and we’ll make our own choices. We get a little nervous when the Weather Channel person says something like “we have the best chance for a tornado today”. There is no “best chance”; it is a scary and expensive event and the word “best” simply does not belong.
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