Baseball-sized hail fell in Northfield, Minnesota on August 24. Hailstones ripped through glass, punched holes in tile, and left big dents on metal.
Earlier this month, a microburst blew through NH, snapping or ripping up hundred year-old trees, one of which totaled Frank’s car. (Thanks, Commerce Insurance, for your quick and considerate handling of our claim!)
A sadder story from that event was the even-bigger tree that destroyed a nearby cottage–trapping two ninety-something people inside it. The Northwood fire crew had to chainsaw in through a wall to rescue them. Insurance won’t do much to make that story less tragic.
“I first came to this house in 1917,” the husband told rescuers. “I’ve never seen weather anything like this before.” Speaking from a mere 20 years there myself, I’d have to agree.
“We dont have any record of anything like this happening before,” says a spokeman for the 114-year old Iowa Corn Palace, describing crop failures after a summer of local drought and heat (reaching 120 degrees at a weather station in South Dakota.)
Hey, if “there is no global warming” advocates can promote anecdotal evidence (apparently there is one glacier in New Zealand that grew when all other glaciers were shrinking), I’ll do the same.
In a more scholarly vein, from the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, check out “Mixing Politics and Science in Testing the Hypothesis That Greenhouse Warming is Causing a Global Increase in Hurricane Intensity“(thanks, Tingilinde!)
But now–I have a new thought for ExxonMobil’s supporters on how to promote their “no global warming” mantra. Take the No Global Warming Pledge: “I promise that I will buy 100 air conditioners for poor families before I buy even one more for my own family.” That would show real sincerity, and maybe do some real good.