By BILL McAULIFFE, Star Tribune
"A year without summer" - that's how one forecaster is looking at the next 2 1/2 months in Minnesota. But there isn't consensus.
Summer's coming. Grab a sweater.
Sunday and Monday may be in the 80s, but some forecasters say don't be fooled.
Across Minnesota and the Dakotas, temperatures could be below normal through the end of August, according to the federal Climate Prediction Center. The outlook for "meteorological summer" -- June, July and August -- prompted one Accuweather forecaster to predict a "year without summer."
"That's how the dice are loaded," said the Climate Prediction Center's senior meteorologist, Ed O'Lenic.
So far, the trend toward a cool summer has been emphatic, with furnaces blasting through the first days of June across the state. The average daily temperature for the first 11 days of June in the Twin Cities was 7.2 degrees below normal.
As of Friday, lilacs hadn't bloomed yet at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center near Finland, Minn. They're usually out June 6.
Of course it's all about averages, and the Twin Cities has already seen two days with highs in the 90s, even though they were in May, which isn't summer in anybody's book. The 97-degree reading on May 19 even stands a good chance of remaining the highest temperature of the year.
Looking on the bright side
"Year without summer? That's a bit harsh," said Chuck Lennon, spokesman for the state Department of Tourism.
Cool temperatures might make lake swimming less appealing, Lennon said, but otherwise shouldn't have much effect on the traditional Minnesota summer pastimes. Despite the generally cool spring so far, state parks campsite occupancy has been running generally higher than last year, according to the DNR.
"Hiking you might stay a bit cooler," Lennon added. "You can ski in a wet suit. Everything else is [climate] controlled."
Turn around is not fair play, there is no mention of Global Cooling or maybe Global Warming isn't happening. But we all know if it had been a warmer than usual spring and summer all we would be hearing is how the world is coming to an end.
But wait! Just today the White House released a dire global warning. According to the White House via StarTribune, Harmful effects from global warming are already here and worsening, warns the first climate report from Barack Obama's presidency in the strongest language on climate change ever to come out of the White House.
Global warming has already caused more heavy downpours, the rise of temperatures and sea levels, rapidly retreating glaciers and altered river flows, according to the document released Tuesday by the White House science adviser and other top officials.
One thing not noted in this scare piece is the age of the data used to compile this pure fear and panic B.S. Will someone please have the White House tune into the Weather Channel.
There is an invisible line from Los Angeles out to the Outter Banks. North of this line is experiencing colder then normal weather while those south of the line have been having average weather. Our weather in North America has been cooling since 1998. In fact, the entire northern hemisphere has been cooling (remember snow in Iraq).
I'm not buying the "data" in this report.
Nicely put
Suppose that we already had "more heavy downpours, the rise of temperatures and sea levels, rapidly retreating glaciers and altered river flows." If my beach house is still the same distance to the water it always was, and if the glaciers have been retreating for the last 400 years and I'm finally getting some water on my parched grass, and the river still goes where it always did, why am I not panicking?
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