Bring it On, Ol’ Man Winter

These past two weeks have brought the worst winter weather imaginable — coastal flooding, record cold, and a blizzard — but we’ve survived it all and made it out to the other side, as moderating temperatures, perhaps even reaching the balmy 50s, are predicted over the next 10 days.

President Trump, as usual, tweeted a typically inane comment during the cold spell, “Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming.”  But as with everything he says or tweets, his lack of knowledge about anything and everything once again was on display.

Just about eight years ago, the esteemed New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman, wrote that while overall global warming certainly will be an issue, the main problem facing us would be what he termed “global weirding,” which Mr. Friedman defined as follows:

“Avoid the term ‘global warming.’ I prefer the term ‘global weirding,’ because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes. The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier, and the most violent storms more numerous.”

Mr. Friedman’s terminology has proven prescient, given the incredible string of storms we have seen in recent years, such as superstorm Sandy, winter storm Nemo, and the 1-2-3 succession of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria this past year, which have wreaked death and destruction on an unparalleled scale.

As life-long New Englanders, we certainly are not so naive as to believe that we have seen the best (or worst) of winter. The remainder of January, February, and March undoubtedly will have a few nasty surprises awaiting us.

So — with apologies to Winston Churchill — to Ol’ Man Winter we say, “You do your worst, and we’ll do our best.”