I just have
to share these unprecedented weather experiences here at Upper Peninsula. After
an extreme long winter the spring and early summer have finally arrived, but
abnormalities with weather didn’t end at the same time.
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| A lake or an ocean? |
Last
Sunday, day before yesterday, here were even heat temperatures in the morning
and noon. Cloudy, sultry noon felt almost tropical and it turned to high wind
by degrees. Afternoon we drove to McLain State Park to see, how Lake Superior
was behaving on that day. Well, the waves on the lake were as huge as on ocean.
T-shirt and shorts were absolutely too tenuous clothing for the wind that felt
like in October. And on top of it all, the breath steamed like in freeze
weather.
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| Sunny view from the dorm yard two days ago |
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| And same location today, the clouds are down! |
Last night
we had quite a strong thunder storm here and I heard that it would have been
the tail of huge storm, which caused shocking destructions in Oklahoma (1200
miles from Hancock) yesterday as a tornado. Before the storm I had a chance to
visit in some small waterfront villages west from South Range with Joe Kirkish.
Mr. Kirkish is a well known local gentleman, a former teacher in Michigan Tech
and a culture person, who keeps himself up to date and is a very eager
photographer too.
Joe had
heard from some climate experts that this kind of unusual weather will become
more common in UP in following decades. There will be more and more extreme
weather: extreme snow, extreme rain, extreme wind and extreme heats – lines of
four seasons are going to dim while by while. “Before I could tell to my
visitors, what kind of weather it would be in a specific month when they were
planning to visit here. No it’s almost impossible to tell forecast for the
forthcoming week. Actually, you even cannot tell at the morning, how the
evening will be”
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| Creepy hinterland road near Lake Superior last night, just before the storm. |
Together
with scientific explanations related to climate change, there are some other approaches
too. Today one older man in Paavo Nurmi Center’s sauna asked me, if I read
Bible. Reportedly it is said there that this phenomenon, when weather is
getting mad is caused by people, who are getting madder too. So, all these
extreme natural phenomena and disasters are some kind of punishment from
upstairs.
All the
same, climate is changing and we all have some opinions and explanations for
that. That’s culture.
