by Gordon J. Gianninoto
As many of you know, Janet and I live on a hill top. It is a mountain, but known as a hill, locally. We do get some wind up here. Well last Sunday night it started to rain and the wind picked up. But what was interesting was the amount of rain, the amount of wind, and the amount of temperature.
On Sunday the temperature was 44 degrees F and it kept increasing. Around midnight, the temperature reached 51 degrees F. Ok, you say, it was a little warm for the middle of December? But that was not all. The cold snap that enveloped the southeastern US brought freezing temperatures to the outskirts of Miami, which was 32 degrees. Cuba was 34 degrees! So when was the last time that in the middle of December, Maine was warmer than Miami, Florida by 19 degrees or Havana, Cuba, by 17 degrees?
I have lived in Maine for 25 and one half years, and two Aprils ago, we had my first Maine 9″ rain, but on Sunday and Monday, we got our second on the Blue Hill peninsula. We had already had frost in the ground as deep as 12 inches in some places, but this 9 inch rain defrosted all of it. Of course, the temperature and the wind helped with that.
When we moved up here in the summer of 2000, that winter, in December or January, we had a blast of wind from the SE that I estimate at 165 mph which lifted up our house and pushed it back about 6 inches. We have no plumbing and the house is a slab sitting on sand. At about 1 in the morning, I heard a ‘bang’ and the south side of the house lifted up about a foot and the whole thing moved back, north, enough to leave a smooth strip of sand on the south side, and a 6 inch pile of sand on the north side. That interested me in getting an anemometer. After about 5 years, the cups broke off of it, but in that time I learned that we get 90+ mph four times a year, and 74+ probably two dozen times a year. Up until last March, we had not crossed over into the 100 mph or above area in a normal storm, but last March, I estimated that we got winds of 112 mph. Usually the wind is from the SE and we feel the gusts, having fields to the SE and the wind hits the trees on the NW of the house after it goes by us.
But this last Sunday night, Monday morning we heard sounds we have never heard, and it was consistent, lasted for hours and peaked around 3 am. I have heard descriptions of the roar of a tornado, and this was almost as bad. As the wind picks up we feel the house shuddering, and whistling. But as it goes above that, it changes to a moan, and above 100, a roar. I stepped outside and the wind was hitting the trees on the NW of the house and making a deafening roar. This was the most wind I have ever stood up in and walked around. The rain had temporarily paused, so I did walk around and it sounded like being tied underneath a train engine going at full speed. It was deafening and with all the rain, trees came down everywhere. At 4 am our power went out, and was restored at 6:30 am, so that was not bad, but when I told the utility that I thought the wind was 115 mph they said they believed it as so many towns on the coast all the way north to Bangor reported outages. Later that day, driving to Bangor, there were trees down and cut up or shoved to the side the entire drive 50 miles north.
Now the weather bureau said the cold front was pushed down to Florida, but warm air came up from the south outside the eastern coast of the US and streamed over Maine. Having such huge pressure differences, cold air going south to the west of us, and warm air coming up over us, brought the wind and the moisture. That was unusual because the normal flow is east to west. Moisture laden storms hit the west coast from San Francisco to Vancouver, then plunge southeast toward the Carolinas, redevelop offshore and hit Maine as a Noreaster. But then the weather continues east into the Atlantic. But this time it is going north to New Brunswick, back across Quebec heading west, over the Rocky Mountains, into the Yukon and out into the gulf of Alaska, down and over the west coast from San Franscisco to Vancouver and back to the Carolinas. A giant treadmill. In fact, on Wednesday, we saw some of the same moisture that had passed over us before, come back as 9 inches of snow. And, as it was headed NW, it will probably back next Monday or Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the temperatures plummeted, and we were dropped from 51 degrees on Monday to temperatures more in line with mid January in the low 10 degrees at night, and 20 in the day. And that is where we are now.
But it does not stop there. On Monday, over 2000 weather records were broken. Most records were in the southeast for cold, but at the same time, records in the west and SW of the US were set for heat. The ‘global warming’ conference in Cancun, set a 100 year record for coldest temperatures recorded in Cancun on that date.
So this is not a normal variation, nor is it any particular warming at all. It is as if the earth tilts and brings areas under air that is warm or cold, depending on the tilt and the untilt directions, and the variation is like nothing before. Our peony plants tried to sprout 3 weeks ago, and Day Lillies thought it was spring and sprouted 4 weeks ago.
I attached two photos of a storm in the midwest and a chart of weather records broken (see above). No one can say this is normal. Just to the east of us, in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, across the St. Croix River from Calais, Maine, there was flooding with up to 5 feet of water filling a large area of town including gas stations and washing out roads like seen elsewhere after hurricanes. This kind of damage in this location is unheard of. Officials called it a ‘one hundred year storm’. How about a 3657 year storm, as Planet X approaches the earth and plays havoc with the weather all over the planet?
When the weather plays havoc, food production is deeply affected as the following Reuters article on commodities shows.
Gordon