help, we’re drowning!
The only thing weirder than last year’s rain in December is this year’s. Because it’s happening again. Because by looking outside you’d want to invest in a skiff boat rather than a pair of skis.
The swamp that was downtown Jackson yesterday evening has gotten deeper. You’d have to be dressed like the Gorton’s Fisherman (yes, you can trust that spelling) to navigate the streets right now. Forget about a snow advisory; there ought to be a flood watch in effect.
I watched my neighbor Jeff shovel slush this afternoon. A pickup truck with a snowplow drove by and splashed him. Jeff gave him the finger. Good for Jeff.
If I’m a ski resort executive, you bet I’m investing in wind power for lifts, converting the ‘cats to biodiesel and maybe even considering jettisoning that fleet of oversized Tahoes for hybrids. Only a precious few degrees separates the heavenly powder from Sierra cement, or worse, this soup outside.
The New York Times chimes in today with a story about the bare slopes and unseasonably warm weather back East. “Burlington, Vt., is usually a snow-covered city in December. But the weather has been so mild in the last month that snowfall is being measured by the meager inch, not by the traditional foot,” writes Dave Caldwell.
This, on the heels of an excellent story by Ski Racing beat writer Nate Vinton in the Times on Nov. 27, titled “Changing Climate is Forcing World Cup Organizers to Adapt.” “High temperatures in Europe have disrupted the Alpine skiing World Cup, throwing the calendar of the sport’s premier circuit into disarray and raising questions about the future of a sport so vulnerable to climate change,” Vinton writes. The Alps are as bare as the Adirondacks, apparently.
Maybe cynics who reject Al Gore’s empirical evidence will accept my anecdotal. It rained FOUR TIMES in December last year. And it didn’t just rain, it poured. Just like today.
Is it time to panic over this ski season in Jackson Hole? No, soon enough we’ll be freezing again. (And the snow is piling up in the high country.)
But listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops on my roof, it makes you wonder.
