To: Cautious_Optimist who wrote (86556 ) 3/31/2012 3:24:43 AM From: T L Comiskey Respond to Friday, March 30, 2012 Seesawing weather patterns - Some people call what has been happening the last few years “weather weirding,” and March is turning out to be a fine example. Lurching from one weather extreme to another seems to have become routine across the Northern Hemisphere. Parts of the United States may be shivering now, but Scotland is setting heat records. Across Europe, people died by the hundreds during a severe cold wave in the first half of February, but a week later revelers in Paris were strolling down the Champs-Élysées in their shirt-sleeves. As a surreal heat wave was peaking across much of the U.S. last week, pools and beaches drew crowds, some farmers planted their crops six weeks early, and trees burst into bloom. Now, of course, a cold snap in Northern states has brought some of the lowest temperatures of the season, with damage to tree crops alone likely to be in the millions of dollars. United States government scientists recently reported that February was the 324th consecutive month in which global temperatures exceeded their long-term average for a given month; the last month with below-average temperatures was February 1985.
