Have you noticed that no matter what the weather does, we find ourselves inundated with reports of extreme weather, and it’s all your fault? So how long before “extremely” pleasant, mild, or average weather will be deemed a sign of the climate apocalypse?
The headlines will read, “A complete lack of anything unusual is a clear sign of unusual things.”
The cataclysmic prophecy of the mundane. The everyday. That which has and always happened and has nothing to do with you or your lifestyle choices. These are peddled as signs from the Climate gods by prophets whose predictions remain unrealized.
Some of these doomsday claims have become so common you could confuse them with perennial public interest stories. They talk about holidays, the changing seasons, annual parades, races, town meetings, elections, or … drought. Every year we hear about drought. And it’s almost April, so drought season is upon us—news about drought, odd-even water-use regulation, and the occasional hyperbolic headline.
If you wander up to our search bar and type in ‘Drought,’ you will find about 150 articles on the ‘Grok, most of them making fun of or debunking the perennial drought festival. It starts right after the town meeting and mud season. And that’s not to say we don’t have drought; we do. There are years when we get less than average precipitation, but much like calling everything racist, the impact begins to dry up from overuse.
In New Hampshire, for example, statewide, we have had above-average precipitation for sixteen of the past twenty years and eight of the past ten.
And that’s using dirty-dog, climate-cult-loving NOAAs data, where the data does not offer much support for the perennial drought theory. But unusually normal or typical weather doesn’t get as many eyeballs, so there is no reason to expect that’s how it will get reported as we roll deeper into 2023.
My prediction; drought headlines for 2023 across the region!
The Immediate Future?
NOAA, which is about as bad at predicting as you can get, suggests that New England will experience 30-50% above average seasonal temps for spring while precipitation appears a toss-up (that means normal, which means they will sell it as drought).
The Farmers Almanac, just as reliable as NOAA, suggests that April will be slightly cooler and drier, with a warmer, drier May and higher temps as we move into a wetter June and July.
Over at Weatherbell Analytics, we hear about what could be a significant El Nino summer, while closer to the coming weeks, April is forecasted as cold and wet.
We’ve covered every base so that someone will be right about something, but as forecasting goes, there is little agreement.
Based on my back-of-the-envelope look, New Hampshire receives more precipitation in weaker El Nino years. That’s speculative at best (as in I eyeballed it), but one thing is sure. If we are not up to our ankles in water (which will be “because” of global warming), drought season is coming no matter what happens … because water use, like energy use, is not about the planet or the climate. It is about control.
