Global warming, as someone noted somewhere else, turned Mark Twain’s adage on its head. Nowadays nobody talks about the weather but everybody’s doing something about it.
I’m doing something, too. In fact, this column has been warning of global warming for so long that I fear all my hot air has contributed to the heat. At least in part. Simsbury, Connecticut, I apologize for that extra degree you added last year. My bad.
But this is not another global warming rant. I’ll no longer join the Prius crowd screeching at those who just couldn’t pass up the big bloated SUV, and damn the consequences to Mother Earth. Nope. No more. The fires and floods are here. Go solar. Move inland. Use sunscreen — SPF 100 at least. And hunker down for the heat.
But with the fix already in, I see no reason why we in New England should not resume our age-old habit of griping about the weather. And this time of year, the griping turns to what kind of winter we are facing.
Will it be a milder winter, like last year, when we had just enough snow to make us mildly miserable but not enough for promises to be “outta here come June”? Or will it be a full-blown lockdown? Snow up to the eaves? Icicles as long as your arm? Breaking news bulletins showing some old guy trudging alone through a “real nor’easter”?
Time was when we predicted the coming winter. We used a variety of tools that blended pseudo-science with folklore, sprinkling both with a dash of utter nonsense. Wooly bear caterpillars were closely watched. Animal fur. And that old trudging guy I just mentioned — had he already high-tailed it to Palm Beach?
Nowadays, however, we have so screwed up the weather that prediction is like forecasting the Red Sox. You can almost hear Mother Nature sighing. Seventy degrees in late October? No problem. Single digit nights a week later? You got ‘em. Snow then sleet then a tornado and, just for fun, a hurricane — in Georgia? Hey, you asked for it!
But because griping and prediction are so human, new forecasting methods have evolved. Here are a few and, as always, they promise to be completely contradictory.
First, keep your eye on liquor sales. Psychologists aren’t sure how, but something in the human psyche “senses” when it’s time to get off the couch, bundle up, brave the snow, and skid on down to the nearest hooch joint to stock up. Fish form schools and swim as one. Birds flock together. Until recently, Republicans and Democrats each marched in step. And now the latest research shows that we humans buy up the Baileys in bulk at least a month before each major spew from the sky.
Next, check the supermarket checkout lines. Used to be they only formed when a nor’easter was coming the next day. Or the afternoon before the Super Bowl. But recent weather has us so confused that the mere mention of December triggers the “shopping gene.” And before you can say “snow, becoming heavy at times,” the lines at local markets are down the aisle all the way to the seafood section.
Finally, trust your gut. You know. C’mon you just know. You know this winter is going to be one of “those” winters. When you can’t get out of the driveway without a snowplow and a pickaxe. When you huddle beneath the down comforter muttering “Cancun, Cancun, Cancun…” When older relatives call from Palm Beach and say, “Woooo, saw that old guy on TV trudging through the nor’easter. You all OK up there?”
So hunker down and hope for the best. We’ll all see other in May and say, “Wooo, some winter, eh?” A few will say “come June I’m outta here” but the rest of us will just gripe, then fire up the SUVs so we can keep doing something about the weather.
Bruce Watson, of Montague, is the author of the online magazine, The Attic — for a Kinder, Cooler America.