After three glorious sixty-degree days in California, we returned to Schenectady just in time for a major winter storm. In mid-April. There’s an inch or two of icy slush all over everything, and it’s still raining. Whee!
It occurs to me again that what we’re seeing locally from climate change feels more like a climate phase shift than a consistent warming. Yeah, December was really warm, but March and April have been cold and shitty. Summer extended well into September last year, but it didn’t really get started until July– teeth were chattering at our commencement ceremony last year in mid-June.
It’s like somebody took the seasons and shifted them by a month or two. This weather would be unremarkable for early March, but it’s unusually unpleasant for mid-April, and there’s no real break in sight…
(Before you start with the nasty comments and emails, I’m well aware that weather is not climate, blah, blah, blah. This is not global warming denialism, and I’m not turning into everybody’s favorite string theorist, it’s just a half-serious qualitative comment.)