Midwest Weather - Strange

June is already one of the wettest on record and it's only the 22nd. And the temperature seems to be fluctuating from well above to well below average. After two hot, muggy days, it's quite cool today. Now there's two things about this. One, models of global warming predict that greater vacillations will occur before the means actually change very much. As the Phactor has always said, you can average the weather, but there is no average weather. Now it seems the variance about the mean is getting greater, which would be a true prediction. Two, the bloody prairie loves getting all this water, and more short students than ever will be getting lost out there. This will make vegetation harvesting and data gathering a lot more work. Groan. On the good news side of things, the raspberries look big, the rejuvenating strawberry bed is looking good, and snap peas are getting ready to eat. Just about time to get out the buffalo (not bison) and till the rice paddy, too.

Average weather here in the great midwest

Beware of the average lie when if comes to weather. Weather people are always fond of telling you that the temperature or rainfall is this much or that much above or below average for this time of year. Here's the big problem; this part of the world never gets average weather. Now you can take all those highs and those lows, those drenching rains and weeks of drought, those summer scorchers and Arctic blasts, windy days and doldrums, and you can average them even though you never get those conditions. So within 4 days the weather goes from lows in the upper 30s and low 40s to highs in the upper 80s and low 90s. Somewhere between the two is some nice average weather, but it never happens, just the turbulent stormy transition from one to the other. And then just to make life interesting, after a front passed during the night and morning dawns more summery, a day's outing took us north back across the front, so the temperature drops like a stone, storms attempt to belt us off the road, and then after a bit of wait, the front passes us again. Dumb. More on the field trip later.