Gloomy!

Meteorologically speaking, this has been a strange year, and the last few days have been a good example. On Saturday, snow fell for most of the day. As a result, the ground was covered with six inches or so of the white stuff on Sunday, making the sledding hill in the park a very popular (and populated) place. Yesterday the temperature warmed up into the forties and rain started to fall. It rained and rained and rained. Rain was still falling this morning, the snow had all melted, and by mid-afternoon the temperature rose to 59 degrees. The ground is still saturated from the record-setting rain we had in December, so today's onslaught of rain and melting snow has no place to go except into the rivers and out to Lake Erie (And into people's basements, but that's another story). My blip today is the view of the Chagrin River from the pedestrian bridge in the park. It was not a good day for blipping. The deer and most of the birds were snuggled up somewhere, trying to keep warm and dry. Ditto for most of the people who walk in the park on good days. So what you see is a bit of what we got: rain, rushing rivers, and lots of puddles and mud! More like mid-March than January. Is this global warming? Whatever it is, I don't like it, and I'm willing to bet very few people will look at this blip, and I can understand why. The picture is as unappealing as the weather.