Let me state this up front: I do not believe in global warming in the sense that the activists mean - a permanent increase in temperature, caused by man (that loathesome parasite on the planet!) But there is no doubt that over the past 20 years or so the weather around here has gotten warmer. It is one of the natural cycles of heating and warming the earth endures. Around 1000 AD the Vikings settled Greenland because it was actually nice there. The world was in a "global warming." A few centuries later the weather had gotten so cold that they had to leave Greenland to the polar bears and a few natives. During Charles Dickens' day, Britain was going through some extremely cold winters, thus all the snow and freezing children in his stories. Closer to our time, back in the 70s they were predicting a New Ice Age! Does anyone remember that? I even have a book to prove it, somewhere on my shelves. It's called A Creed for the New Millenium, written in the mid 80s, telling of a near future in which the whole world is covered in snow most of the year. Our future. Now. Anyone miss the irony?
Well, we did have a ridiculously snowy winter, and an extremely cool and rainy summer last year, but this summer is making up for lost time. I did some research, finding statistics from the National Weather Service and Stormfax.com, and listed the avg temp, avg high, avg rain and avg snow by month for the region, then listed those facts by month for all of 2009 and 2010 so far (yes, I know, that's a bit extreme, but I was curious!) Some interesting statistics arose. Keeping in mind that the averages were taken from chilly 1971 to balmy 2000, I was very surprised to find that last year's temperatures, cool as they were compared to recent years, were very close to the average.
But the difference between last year and this year was striking: from April to June 2009, 13.27" rain fell. This year, same months? 7.23". The average high temperature in June last year was 78.9 degrees, with only one day over 90. The average for June 2010 was 87.6, nearly 10 points higher, with 15 days over 90! Last summer we had a grand total of 11 days over 90 degrees; so far this year, only half-way through, we have had 20, with another dozen or so nearly 90.
Boy! Tough year to start a flower farm!