Drenching and Drying

I'M STARTING TO TALK ABOUT it a lot more, because to me it is an increasingly prevalent phenomenon. And it seems to be intensifying during all four seasons; the tendency for the weather to produce prolonged periods of drought, punctuated by periods of nonstop torrential downpours. I never imagined that in the area in which I live there would be a month long drought in February. I was wrong. It happened a couple of years of go. This is entirely aside from the noticeable trend in the American mid south and indeed all across the country, that of much less snowfall. I can recall when we would have several three or four inch snowfalls every winter, spread out over the three winter mnoths, and the snow would stay on the ground only a couple of days, and would quickly melt. As we move deeper into the twenty firt century, we have years without any snow at all, then, once in a blue moon, so to speak, two feet of it falls at once, or if not snow, a severe ice storm takes down power lines and trees. Its all about extremes. Extreme wet, extreme dry. I am fortunate, rainfall-wise, to live atop a plateau, with a slight but steady downhill slope, my house located on the gentle slope. The rain runs into my yard, then the waters divide and flow around my house, and on downhill to the rivers, lakes, and streams. Lareg lake-like puddle ominously form in my front yard, and I worry about the water entering the house, but it never does, and after living here for twenty years, I tend to believe that it never will, lord unwilling. But it still alarms me. Several inches of rain n a mattter of mere hours, many inches over a period of several days, relentlessly drenching our town. Since I live in an area which is naturally deciduous forest, the rain gladdens me. I don't want our lovely Ozark mountains to eutrophy into a grassy prairie or desert. Then come the droughts, especiall in the spring and summer, and as the treeswilt and sag, I once again start to wonder if, over the next few decades, teh tress will indeed vanish, replace by the sort of ten foot tall grass through whcih teh Americanpioners in their covered wagons had to strive on their way through Kansas going west. On either two or three occasions - I can't recall which - I have witnessed trees turning brown in August, most alarming of all. And, as has benn pointed out to us too many times to coutn, we know exaclty the cause of all this, for it is a phenomenon, this extreme wether pattern of alternating wet and dry, is manifesting all over the world. The recent events in Texas, the flooding which is tragicially repeating itself and threatening to take even more lives, bear stark witness to the over the top wet cycle. Only this spring did I see on the news that New York City is getting drenched. The subways are flooded, many of them temproarily out of service. We knwothat we are inthe midst of climate change, which was once relegated to the future,but has now arrived. It arrived long ago, as early as the nineteenth century. In 1852 London was blackas night for four consecutive days, inudated in coal smoke,and tousands of people dropped dead in teh streets. The indications and warnings have been with us a very long time, and for a very long time we the people have ingored them. The weather patterns we have experienced so farin 2025 are the fairest weather we will ever again experience. From now on,the climate only changes more,and keeps changing,and becomes more volatile and deadly. The heavily carbonated atmosphere absorbs more heat from the sun, which increases evaporation world wide,and the atmosphere soaks up more and more rain, until it can hold no more. I can remember the almost daily pop up showers which briefly interrupted our whiffle ball games in the nineteen sixties. Now, the overheaed atmosphere an hold much more moisture, so it does. Our ball games were interrupted for mere minutes, and were often followed by a rainbow. Now the ball gamse are washed out for days and long forgotten, and even the rainbows seem to have gone somewhere else.