Weather, or not?

   The weather today has been really screwy.  This morning it was almost warm and had just started sprinkling.  By the time I was done with PT, it was raining.  Then, on the way to work, some snow was mixed in with the rain and the temperature had dropped.  An hour later, the temp dropped more, and the snow was really coming down.  (At least it was coming down as far as a California boy was concerned.)  Then, during lunch, it stopped snowing, but it still wasn’t much warmer.  If I was back in CA, I would say that this was earthquake weather.  (Yeah, I know that the weather really doesn’t have anything to do with earthquakes.)  And Korea isn’t known for having them like CA, or Japan, but they do happen here once in a while.  There was one the last time I was here.  It was just a baby though, around a 2.5, barely enough to be felt, or heard.  But you should have seen the way the Koreans panicked, it was kind of humorous.  They were either running looking for somewhere to hide, or looked completely dumbfounded.  Meanwhile, I got a big smile on my face because I had just been reminded of home.  It was even better because it wasn’t expected.  Who says that earthquakes don’t bring anything good?  

   Earlier this week the Mid-west was hit hard by tornadoes.  If I remember correctly, it was around a hundred of them, or so.  If I’m given a choice between an earthquake, and a tornado, I would have to take the earthquake.  Why?  Its simple.  A tornado could destroy your house, and everything in it, while not so much as removing a shingle from your neighbor’s place.  (There was one report, from the recent tornadoes, that I remember showing just this thing.)  An earthquake, on the other hand, will take everyone’s stuff down.  Yeah, I’m selfish.  And misery loves company too.  

   It seems that this past year has been the year of the natural disaster.  First, we had a terrible hurricane season.  It had so many named storms that they ran out of names!  Not only that, a fair number of the ones that became hurricanes, got to the strongest two classes.  It wasn’t only a bad year in the Atlantic, but the Pacific had its fair share of Typhoons.  Some were too big to fly around.  Now that’s saying something!

   Then, we have the fires in the Southwest.  The land there has been so dry lately that burn bans have gone into effect for entire states.  These fires have been burning since early January, I think.  There are just too many of them to be handled.  And the firefighters, along with military members, are getting burned out (No pun intended.) from the constant battle.  What’s going to happen when these people run out of steam, and the main part of fire season gets here during the summer?

   I said that the fires mentioned above were because of a lack of rain in the Southwest.  Well, where has all of that rain gone?  That answer brings us to the next location, California.  This has been the second wettest year in California history.  And all of that water has caused flooding and landslides on a scale that CA is not used to.  The land just doesn’t have the capability to hold that much water in so short a time.  And the storm drainage system wasn’t designed to handle the volume either.  Combine those two with the fact that the last two years had been record fire years, and I’m surprised that we haven’t heard CA asking for federal assistance the way New Orleans did.  Oh wait, we are able to handle things ourselves, so never mind.

   Well, I certainly hope that this next 365 will be better weather wise.  We’ll know starting in June with hurricane season.

    I’ll see ya’ll later.