To me, climate change means weird weather. We just can’t count on the weather anymore. Used to be, spring was rainy and chilly, summer was hot, July and August were very dry, the rain started again sometime in September.
Then about 5 years ago, we had a hurricane named Ike that made it all the way to the Ohio River in September. Trees down, dangerous winds. I had no power for 8 days, and others parts of town had it worse. The weather was strange before then, but since then, nothing is the same.
I lost a wonderful super tall Norway spruce to year-long drought – in a place that is always full of water. It took 3 years to die.
And last night, a Friday, when the nearest rain was supposed to be next Wednesday, we had a wild and dangerous storm – big hail, lightning for nearly two hours. The power went out with a big boom, then back on, another boom, struggling back on again, the third boom. About an hour after that, the power surged back on (I had turned off the AC). Then a huge explosion sounding boom, with a bell sound mixed into it, and the power disappeared again. An hour after that, tired of trying to read by flashlight, and knowing that humidity was getting worse, I drove to a friend’s house a couple of neighborhoods over.
Spooky dark driving over – no lights anywhere up or down the street. I went up, deciding not to drive on Columbia Parkway in these conditions. A few blocks away the traffic lights worked, but nothing else. And then no traffic lights, nothing, until the very edge of another community, where everything was nearly normal. Continuing on, there was some power, but almost no street lights.
Then a few blocks from my friend’s house, almost everything became normal. Some sporadic street light outages, traffic lights blinking, but nearly normal. We settled in and watched Rafael Nadal lose to Nick Kyrgios – Some sporadic play on Nick’s part, more from Nadal’s side of the net.
When I got up this morning, I expected I’d go on to my gathering – but suddenly knew I had to go home first. Leaves everywhere, but only very small limbs down in my tree-filled yard. The power had come on (from the electric clocks) about 1:30 a m. I was comfy, put back stuff that had gotten disarranged while I was in the dark and preparing to leave, and went off to my Dream Group.
I guess I’ve gotten used to no longer trusting the weather. Just coping with what comes. And I still appreciate this beautiful planet.