As the Sun Rises

Minutes before Dawn
February 21, 2015

The sun is rising--I can just begin to see the shapes of the naked trees silhouetted against the clear, frigid sky.

Another "it's gonna be too cold" day begins. It is forecast to be (and I quote) "much warmer" today than yesterday. There is something fundamentally wrong when much warmer equates to a high temperature of 29 degrees!

Sunrise is set for 6:51 AM and I am not sure that I really want the day to begin given the forecast for an afternoon and evening full of snow to the tune of possibly 8 inches. It will be another day spent with a shovel in my hand and the promise of Spring slipping further and further away from reality.

I am not just complaining about the weather in my region--but all across the nation it is cold and snowy. Denver, Colorado, is forecasting up to 20 inches of snow in some areas. I was reading that Syracuse, New York, has received almost 49 inches of snow in February alone! The low in Miami, Florida, was 42 degrees yesterday missing the record by a scant 1 degree. I want to live somewhere where the record low is in the 40's. 

In Baltimore we set a new record low of 1 degree besting the record of 7 degrees set in 1885! The high was 18 degrees and when added together they still don't get to the 42 degree low of Miami! The high temperature in Anchorage, Alaska, yesterday was 32 degrees! Go figure.

Optimistically--maybe this is the last big storm of the season?

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD