It’s the Weather – Again

 

This article from the Old Farmers Alamanac reviews past weather events that changed peoples’ lives, including some in recent history.  https://www.almanac.com/extra/year-without-summer

Tambora’s eruption in 1815 not only caused havoc in 1816 in New England, but also killed thousands in Indonesia as well as nearly wiping out Switzerland and putting England and Europe into a freeze zone.  https://boris.unibe.ch/81880/7/tambora_e_web.pdf

Frost Fairs were held on the Thames several times. The impact on Europe, and particularly on Switzerland was devastating. And in the newly-minted USofA, farmers could barely get out the door to take care of their livestock, never mind keep the household going. There is a possibility, as mentioned in the Old Farmers Almanac, that the Mormons got their start because of that freak-show winter that never went away.

In addition, rough weather twice turned back British ships carrying troops to American to support the British attempt to retake the Colonies. Instead, those regiments were sent to the Continent to fight Napoleon, and you know how that went, don’t you?

That prolonged cold spell drove Percy Bysse Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley and their friends  indoors with their friends, which led to a writing contest to see who could come up with the scariest story. The result was the creation of the novel “Frankenstein”. (Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” was written and published much later, in 1897.)

The impact of solar cycles on weather is real. The Sun is dormant. Sunspots have been noticeably absent since 2006.

The daily list of solar images is here:  https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/synoptic/sunspots_earth/

No sunspots means low or no activity by the sun. Low to no solar activity means less output, and that has an influence on our weather. If you watch the meteorologists giving us the latest weather forecasts, they are now referring to huge loops and buckling (Rossby waves) in the jet stream, which is driving cold Arctic air south into my turf and pushing all that warm summer air south.  If you think it hasn’t happened before — well, it has. While I resent having to run the furnace this late in the year just to keep my little house warm for Miss Punkin, if I didn’t have indoor heating via a modern furnace, I’d have to start a fire in what used to be called a parlor stove – a wood or coal burner that kept the parlor or living rooms warm. And if we’re having meat shortages at the grocery store now, because the packing plants have had to shut down, then what happens when the weather interferes with delivery, how much worse could it get?

Is this going to stop? Ask the Sun. It’s been napping with occasional sneezes for 14 years now. Check the sunspot list at the link above. Even comets impacting on its surface don’t wake it up. It just sneezes a couple of times and goes back to sleep. And the weather outside is still too chilly for bugs to emerge, which is why I’m still putting out bird food this late in the spring.

No, I do not want spring/summer weather so hot that the power grid shuts off. We take far too much for granted now. The weather has a mind of its own. We can’t control it, and we’re still trying to figure out how to make accurate forecasts, which change with the way the wind blows. We had snow in mid-April, too. But when a meteorologist says that we’re going to see snow in New England this cotton-pickin’ weekend because those huge loops in the jet stream are bringing cold arctic air south, I want to know what planet we’re living on.

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves"