When I first moved to Georgia in November 2010 something happened weather-wise during the first winter that showed me just how different things were here than out west.
We had what was considered a terrible snowstorm. In fact, we haven’t had as much snow in 13 winters since.
Two inches.
You must mean two feet.
Nope, two inches. And it was cold enough that the roads iced up and pretty much brought Atlanta and the surrounding area to a half for two days.
You must mean two hours.
Nope, two days. The problem was that much of the area around Atlanta is hilly, and the ramps on and off the interstates were so icy the big trucks were unable to make it all the way up. They were stalled and blocking the ramps.
You must mean ….
Ah, shut up and let me write.
I thought about that first winter today and it reminded me of how different things were in the 24 years in lived in Colorado, Nevada and California. We had snowstorms that dropped 25-30 inches and rainstorms that lasted two or three days.
Nothing like this winter in California, though. A month or so ago, there were days of historic rains in Southern California. February is traditionally the wettest month in Los Angeles, but this year they got an entire wet February worth of rain in a couple of days. And this week in the Sierras, 12-15 feet of snow is falling and shutting down everything.
In the 18 months I lived in Reno, I drove over Donner Pass dozens of times going to and from San Francisco. I never had to do it in snow, though. My worst winter driving experience was in January 1988 driving back from the East Coast to Colorado. Six hours on I-70 to go 175 miles from the Kansas state line to Denver in a two-door coupe without snow tires.
Even that was nothing compared to what’s happening now.
I’m sure the Trumpanzees and other right wingers will be whining and saying hey, what about global warming? Of course they don’t understand the difference between climate and weather. Hot daily temperatures are weather, and weather is only part of climate.
When overall temperatures rise, the result is often more extreme weather — bigger hurricanes and tornadoes, flooding and bigger storms of all sort.
At least the Sierra storms will help the snowpack, which when it melts will help California with its water shortages.
Meanwhile, another winter that wasn’t is coming to an end here in Georgia.