Wonky Weather

Spring is clearly here because the weather is all wonky. It’s sunny one minute, storming the next. And this morning we woke up to a dusting of snow on the cars outside. Yikes. I’m either freezing cold or boiling hot and I have absolutely no idea how to dress these days! Yeah, yeah, I know all about layering and all that – but by the end of the days sometimes I fear I’d be down to my skivvies if I truly wanted to be comfortable.

All day long yesterday we heard we were in for some nasty weather. I was willing to believe the meteorologists this one time, too, because it was dark and ominous off and on most of the day. We even had an occasional raindrop hit the window. But there was no major rainstorm.

As the day wore on, I sort of figured Mother Nature was just waiting for the 5 o’clock rush hour to hit before she unleashed her venom on us poor commuters. I don’t know about anyone else, but I just l-o-v-e driving home when it’s raining so hard my overtaxed windshield wipers can’t keep up and I can barely see the car ahead of me. Or when it hails. I hate hail. Whenever it hails, I want my car to be safe and sound inside the garage so the poor thing doesn’t suffer any more dings and dents.

The radio announcers don’t help the situation any when they interrupt regular programming every five minutes to tell us about the catastrophic winds and severe thunderstorm warnings – in counties so far removed from my own that when the storm finally hits my area, it’s reduced to a coupla halfhearted raindrops and a little puff of wind.

I’m also starting to rethink my decision to “like” on Facebook the television stations in Columbus. Why? Because they, too, do a play-by-play as the storm progresses from one county to the next. This mostly pisses me off because I’m so directionally challenged, I don’t know if the storm is heading toward me or away from me.

Oh, and the traffic reporters get everyone in a tizzy when they talk about how roadways are slick because some of the hail might be coating the road surfaces and we need to leave plenty of room between vehicles in case we slide. Well, come on. It was 60 degrees out there – how long was the hail going to stay in solid form before melting into a tiny puff of steam?

It did start raining shortly before 5 o’clock, so we left a few minutes early to get a jumpstart on the commute home. I devised my travel strategy avoiding the freeway that was already backed up. And…nothing. Cars were driving normally. The rain completely dissipated the farther north I drove. And I got home without a single piece of hail striking the roof of my car.

Talk about a letdown. Here I was all prepared for yet another storm of the century and I didn’t even get to see a flicker of lightning. Now, true enough, it did hail up north. But I missed it all.

And then this morning when we woke up and saw a coating of snow on the roofs of the cars outside, well, we knew we were in for another chilly day so I hauled out my turtleneck and winter coat again.

Hopefully I won’t be down to my skivvies by the end of the day. I got dressed in a hurry and they don’t match. Oops.

Hope you’re all staying warm today. Or…cool. You know what they say – we live in the Midwest. Give it a minute; the weather will change.