Is Abnormal the New Normal?

I’m talking weather here (not politics, to my sons’ relief.)  Ever hear of AWSSI?  I hadn’t until an article in the Seattle Times explained that the Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index indicated that we were having abnormally low temperatures, unusual snow (more than Minneapolis in January and February) and abnormally persistent grey skies – duh.  My harbingers of spring are the vivid purple plum blossoms and perky crocuses which usually appear the second or third week of February; here it is, mid-March, and I am still waiting.

Nobody throughout the country needs an index to tell them something weird is going on – from cancellation of the Birkebeiner in Cable, from terrible tornadoes in the south, from green lawns in Duluth, from seventy-degree days in January in Madison, from ice and snow raging up the east coast as I write, from torrential, dam-threatening rains in California, from winter wildfires in LA., to mud slides and falling tree deaths here in Seattle.

And in Sun Valley?  Bleak skies and more snow already than since 1937, and it’s still coming.  Ann and I skate-skied and snowshoed there the last couple of weeks.  Ann’s sister Jan and bro-in-law Tom joined us for a few days.  It’s beautiful for we visitors (the real reason for this post – pretty pictures) but the natives can’t pile it up anymore and must arrange to have it trucked south.  It’s hell on the elk.

Jan, Ann and Tom at Galena Lodge

Ann snowshoeing on Pioneer Cemetery trail

I don’t know from climate . . . but as for weather, I borrow from our President to proclaim “I, Fletch Waller, hereby ban all weather for 90 days so we can figure out what the hell is going on!”