Waves, Not Really, Same Thing Last Year

FTLComm - Tisdale - Tuesday, June 26, 2001

That is standing water in a ditch on the North side of town and clearly the last few days of showers and rain is the story of the day. To the North of us in the boreal forest La Ronge has had steady and heavy rain for all of the weekend and it continues until today and most likely beyond. When it was decided that rain was the story of the day it was a surprise to discover that it was the story of the day a year ago. Not only did we have a story discussing weather a climate patterns but if you take a look at this date in our weatherlog you discover that the weather recorded for today is almost the same as it was for a year ago and the year before that. Weather is probably one of the single most important factors in our lives yet we are powerless to do anything about it, though we begin all conversations with a commentary on the state of today's weather it is as pervasive and immutable as gravity. Despite the progress made in being able to describe weather we as a culture have barely scratched the surface in understanding how it works. The complex interactions between oceans, the gases in the atmosphere and the power output of our sun are not something that humanity grasps and surprisingly superstition and our species desire to engrandise itself play a huge part in attempts to explain the phenomena. More and more useful and important discoveries will be made that will help explain some of the conditions we observe but those feeble explanations will not alter or command what will happen.