Thursday, February 6, 2014

Dry Ice

What a wonderful introduction to 2014 we've had, weather-wise.  I think we'll all remember 'Polar Vortex'; even those of us living in the West, which, until this past week brought us something that looks very much like rain, has been dry and warm: even more than a typical SoCal 'Winter'.

To be honest, I'm still failing to understand what causes a 'Polar Vortex'.  All I can fathom is that a lot of very cold air is rushing down from the North Pole, sweeping across Canada, and plunging deep into the US of A's solar plexus.  Exactly WHY this air is rushing down I don't know, although I am willing to lay blame on the jet stream - that puppy is always stirring up trouble.  If the weather stinks its because a stratospheric river of air has done something naughty.  It's even a worse actor than El Nino, or La Nina, whichever of those two flavors of lukewarm of lukecold Sea Rivers are in play.  Not that I've heard either mentioned lately, what with that new, fashionable Vortex Kid in town.

I also don't understand why we here in the West have been so very dry and warm while the rest of You have been buried under varying layers of ice.  You get 'Ice Age' and we get 'Lawrence of Arabia'.

Maybe all that cold, wet air being blown down from the Pole was sucked up from somewhere far out in the Pacific, and pulled completely up and over us.

Whatever, it seems to have broken down now, and we're getting a little wet.  Which is OK, because it eases my conscience for enjoying the perfect motorcycle riding weather the dare-I-say 'drought' has brought with it.  My penance for feeling smug about my year-round biking while my Northern and Eastern brothers and sisters have to live on magazines, online forums, and dreams from Thanksgiving to Easter, is that I now have to do some of the same, if only for a short time.

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