Global Warming meets the Lake Effect

Michael Scott from the Plain Dealer posted this ominous warning about how global warming could actually make snowfall in Chardon WORSE!!! Looking on the bright side, the cross-country skiing should be good this year. Frankly, Helen, Jack and I examined woolly bears (a fine old Cleveland meteorological tradition) this fall and concluded the winter would not be too bad. We'll see who's right - the climatologists or the caterpillars!

"Don't get too comfortable -- we're crossing dangerous waters. Oh, sure, we just had the third warmest October on record, and it will be deceptively pleasant outdoors again this weekend. But remember, Lake Erie also sits at a lethally warm 54 degrees. And veteran weather watchers know the freezing 'gales of November' - and lake effect snow - aren't far off. Remember November 1996? An early season lake-effect snowstorm 11 years ago this weekend buried Chardon and other Geauga and Lake suburbs under more than five feet -- five feet! -- of wet, heavy snow. The storm that began Nov. 9 knocked out electricity to nearly 200,000 homes three eastern counties were declared disaster areas. The area's previous worst early-season storm -- the 1950 blizzard -- hit the same week of November that year. So don't blame us for a mistrust of sunny November skies. "The warmer the lake, the greater the
potential for the big event," said Will Kubina, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Cleveland..........more