On The Ironies of Weather

Every summer, wise Floridians (and residents of other subtropical nations and states) become very familiar with the National Hurricane Center website (www.nhc.noaa.gov), with daily (or multiple-times daily, depending on how grim the situation is) readings about which tropical waves could develop into hurricanes and which hurricanes threaten the flat, reclaimed swampland where I reside. Having recently moved from a rare area in my city not in any evacuation zone to somewhere in Evacuation Zone A (meaning I may be particularly itinerant this hurricane season), I will be paying even more attention (if that were possible) to the business of hurricanes and tropical storms as I go about my affairs in work and school.

This particular year has started early with regards to tropical storms. Despite it being only the beginning of May, on May 9th Subtropical Storm Andrea formed in the Atlantic just off the coast of St. Augustine, slowly drifting west towards the state in dry, unfavorable atmospheric conditions. This brave little storm is already dissipating, but it marks the first storm of what could be a busy season. Ironically enough, some people (including Florida's Governor) were hoping that the tropical storm would bring some much needed rain to Florida. No dice.

What could drive people to wish for a tropical storm to hit Florida when the last few years have been less than kind to Florida in that regard (lest anyone forget, during the 2004 Hurricane Season, Florida was hit by four major hurricanes, the last two of which knocked out power where I lived for over a week)? In 2005 Florida was hit by another three hurricanes, one of which destroyed part of Miami International Airport (and delayed my flight back to Tampa from New Jersey, though it indirectly gave me first class tickets, so I suppose I can't complain too much). The reason is that Florida is as dry as my sense of humor right now.

Florida and Georgia are so dry right now that a swamp is burning (!) and the air quality earlier this week (thanks to a fire near Gainesville) was so bad it reminded me of the smog in Los Angeles (as well as my experiences with fires out there, which threatened Griffith Park Observatory earlier this week, one of my favorite spots in LA). One fire, the aforementioned fire on the GA/FL border, has burned over 100 square miles of land and is now threatening towns on the stateline. Another fire has burned part of northern Minnesota and is now heading into Canada. Drought conditions have prevailed over much of the United States, and the droughts are turning quite ugly as hotter weather has turned dry grass into a tinderbox.

However, other parts of the United States (like Kansas and Nebraska, and other parts of the midwest) are having floods right now from rather severe rains, the worst floods since 1993. Those floods, by the way, were so severe that they forced some towns close to the rivers of the midwest to move further away from the river to avoid being in the floodplains. If cities and towns in Florida were moved away from the floodplains to avoid damage from flooding, there would not be much of Florida left suitable for habitation, but I suppose that is another subject for another time.

It appears that, however you look at it, this year already is shaping up to be a wacky one with regards to the weather. A late start to winter in Europe created serious problems, and the end of winter featured dramatic temperature swings from spring-like weather to late blizzards. No matter what reason one uses for the weather being as it is, the weather is truly bizarre, clearly not right. While it may keep some of us glued to the weather channel (or various other equivalents), it should force us to think as well how much our lives and livelihoods depend on the fickleness of our increasingly erratic weather.

It would not surprise others to know that my life and livelihood, like everything else in my existence, has an ambivalent relationship with the weather. For one, I live in an area rather vulnerable to hurricanes, living near the coast (a bay, to be precise). However, as a reviewer of modular building plans, I get more work when modular buildings need to be built as replacements for destroyed buildings as well as construction trailers for building sites post-disaster. So, while I dislike disasters, and the stress that hurricane season brings for me as I stare at menacing looking storms in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, I profit off of the same. Like the ironies of the weather, the ironies of my life are many.