Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Friday, January 14, 2011

There But For the Grace Of Nature

How very odd. While around the world extreme weather events not normally associated with the geographic areas engulfed in cold and snow continue to make the international news, with almost all the 50 states in the United States suddenly having to cope with massive snowfalls, the Ottawa Valley has been experiencing its own peculiar winter weather.

Cold it most certainly is, but not as cold as it so often becomes in the dead of winter. And with a modest covering of snow here, where we are more accustomed to great, deep snow packs.

Europe too has been receiving massive amounts of snow, having to dig themselves out from under heights of snow hitherto unknown and struggling to surmount difficulties where municipalities have never had to equip themselves with snow-removal devices before the present time.

A country like Russia, accustomed to huge winter snowfalls and the inconveniences they bring, well equipped with winter snow removal equipment has been struggling the last few years with unaccustomed amounts of deep snow.

In other parts of the world, Sri Lanka and Australia as well as Brazil have been inundated with massive flooding and mountain slides as extreme rain events have eroded the ability of the ground to absorb the excess amounts swelling rivers into raging torrents rushing through towns and villages and cities, creating hell and havoc everywhere.

People have been swept into the muddy torrents to their death, and rescue crews have been desperately working to save whom they may.

Another volcano has erupted; Mount Etna in Italy, temporarily closing down airports; an inconvenience for the moment, not quite resembling the disaster with the Icelandic volcanic eruption that halted air traffic throughout Europe for weeks.

And here, in the Ottawa Valley, with our low snow pack and relatively cold, but not quite frigidly icy conditions, we are informed that we have the distinction of having the purest air in southern Ontario.

Little particulate matter, and very few days of ozone alerts. Disaster elsewhere, a quiescent environment in our little corner of the Earth.

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