Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Another beautiful day in Indiana.
I've been saying that a lot lately - sarcastically, of course - upon arrival at the office.
I know I will be accused of being a whiner, but I just have to say I am getting really tired of the weather around here.
I have lived all 44 of my years in Indiana so I am fully aware of the weather we have here.
But it seems over the past several years it just keeps getting worse.
I remember when I was a kid, we had four seasons. They were distinct. They were identifiable.
If I lapsed into a coma for several months and awoke not knowing how long I had been unconscious, I could tell what time of year it was by looking outside.
Spring was chilly, wet and breezy. Summer was hot and alternately dry and muggy with an occasional thunderstorm. Autumn was chilly, brisk and cloudy, but not necessarily wet. Winter was cold - sometimes really cold - and snowy. Lots of times there would be snow on the ground from November to March.
Each season had a fair share of sunny and partly sunny days.
Not anymore.
It seems as if we have three months of something akin to summer - June, July and August - surrounded by nine months of gray blah.
And the rain, my heavens, the rain.
It's not like we get deluged all the time, just sprinkled a lot. Just enough to ruin the picnic or rain on the parade.
It seems as if I'm always dumping a 10th of an inch of rain out of my rain gauge.
And ever notice how when it's nice out these days - high, blue sky, slight breeze, temperatures in the mid 70s - people comment on how remarkable the weather is.
That's just the point. It is remarkable. We used to have days like that all the time. There was nothing remarkable about a day like that.
Now when we have a day like that, I almost feel like assigning one of my reporters to do a story on it.
It's so rare, it's news.
The headline would read, "Sun Shines Over Warsaw." The story would read something like:
"Meteorologists today were studying an unusual weather phenomenon over Kosciusko County - sunshine.
For more than four hours, the sun was unimpeded by cloud cover.
It's really starting to bum me out.
I never put much stock in that seasonally affected disorder. That's a mental condition where people get bummed out by lots of cloudy days.
Seems lots of people are like plants. They need sunlight to thrive.
Well, I think I am one of those people. I have this general state of malaise about me when it's cloudy all the time.
And anymore, it's cloudy all the time.
Plus, I like to do stuff outside. And all the cloudy, threatening rain conditions really cramp my style.
I like to ride my bicycle to work sometimes, for example. I get up, I look at the radar and there is always something popping up somewhere to the west.
So I don't ride.
And then it doesn't rain, but just stays cloudy all day.
One day, I looked at the radar. It was cloudy outside, but there was no rain anywhere from Indiana to Iowa on the radar.
Great! I thought. I'll ride my bike to work. I took off and by the time I got to Leesburg it was pouring.
Our technical supervisor, Craig, knows a lot about computers and weather and radar and all manner of electronic stuff so I asked him how that could happen.
He said it was one of those fast-developing rain storms. Apparently, there is no way to predict them.
All that technology and no way to know for sure when and where it will rain.
I also have a motorcycle and like to ride it, too. Same problem. Clouds. Fast-developing rain storms.
Probably the only positive thing about Indiana weather is that it keeps me off the golf course. That's better for everyone concerned.
The other day I was playing golf with my son between rains. We played nine holes. He beat me by 10 strokes.
He said, "You hit the ball too well to score that bad." He was trying to make me feel better.
And what's the big deal about shooting your age? I do that all the time. Just the other day I shot 44 on the front nine at Maxwelton.
Probably what put me over the edge with regard to Indiana weather was our family trip to Florida over spring break.
I had never been there before.
That's right. I'd never been to Florida.
I loved it. It was sunny every day. Every day. Day after day. Sunny. Mid-80s.
I felt invigorated. It was wonderful.
I don't know for sure why the weather is changing. I suppose it's the greenhouse effect. More people. More cars. More burning of fossil fuels. More bad gases released into the atmosphere.
I guess maybe there is something to that whole global warming thing. But you know what, I think they misnamed that phenomenon.
Warming I can handle. Heat would be just fine. It's the clouds I don't like.
I think they should have called it global drabbing.
