Warming Winter

I'm looking out the window as I sit in my chair, at the rain which is coming down like a waterfall. There was snow this morning but it's all melted and been washed away. The temperature is +4.

I can think back to the seventies when I first began planning to leave BC. The only thing I was scared of was what kind of weather I would come up against. In BC, when the snow level reaches 12 inches, the cities shut down all services. This happened once when I was in school. They sent us home and the banks and offices were sent home, too.

Later, in Ottawa, I found out that 12 inches happened about October 18th and lasted until April. I was crushed and wondered how I would survive, how would the city survive, when everyone would be sitting at home all winter. I still believed that everything shut down at 12 inches. Ottawans laughed at me and had good sport telling me all the horror stories about walking to work when the snow is18 inches. It was all true, too.

Now,  however, for the last five of six years, winters have been  mild. We have even had 16 degrees in November when no one had to wear a coat. Ottawans on the whole love global warming. But this year is the mildest we've had ever. Still above zero in December and rain. Skiers have to use machine made snow which melts but that's not my problem.

I just wonder where it will all end. Will we have a tropical climate about the 60th parallel in my lifetime? Already there are birds showing up in this part of the world which normally live in the Southern USA.

I have to admit that I am undecided on whether I like mild, rainy winters or would like a bit of snow. I could get used to it, they have the same in BC but somehow I also feel a loss of some intangible feeling that I used to carry through winter. Almost a sadness that something has passed. I don't know if I'm alone in this but I get I'll just have to live with it.