Maryland, My Maryland
The weather-climate-events in Maryland are not for the faint of heart. *sigh* This morning I felt an awful rocking of the house, turns out we had a small earthquake here in coastal Maryland.
Growing up here you never really notice it, it just *is* and you accept it. It wasn’t until I started chatting with people all over the world, that they would find some events here rather surprising.
“I have to go, they are calling for a tornado warning, ” I would type, “and I must shut down the PC and get to the basement.” I think I’d actually left them in mid SHOUTING to me to run get safe. I’d return some time later, or some days later to them in half torment wondering if we had survived over here. During one spring, this happened countless times and turned into a summer of horrible storms.
Years on the net and chatting with the people accumulated a few events to tell of. I hadn’t realized how bad it is here, till I talked with someone from the land of perfect weather. He just couldn’t fathom how we manage here.
In the course of talking to him, Maryland had gone through droughts, F5 tornadoes, a few hurricanes, smaller tornadoes, Hurricane force winds, hail, snow, blizzards, sub zero temperatures, even more sub zero wind chills, snow to the point of declaring a state of emergency with one winter not one day passed by that we didn’t get a flake or a lot of snow. That was followed by a spring of constant downpours, flooding, and near bursting dams. The sky just opened up the entire year. This was followed by some more hurricanes with storm surges and weeks of lost electricity in the area. To drive the point home, the internet makes it easy to send ‘day after’ photos of the debris of tornadoes, the cities under water after the floods, the trees down thanks to the hurricanes.
We already had an earthquake some years ago, and today makes another, with the promise of 4-8 inches of snow tomorrow. It sure is never dull here, and we can go from balmy beautiful one minute to crazy chilly the next!
When he finally had heard enough, I just loved cheekily typing, “Have I told you of our pestilence?” I think that clinched it. Every 17 years Maryland is invaded by horrible, noisy, and rather large insects called cicadas. 🙂
No matter how often in the middle of the mess I wish for sun and blue skies, I have to admit, I just might miss the excitement. 🙂
The way you describe it, Maryland is the calamity center of the universe! I know better… I was there last year for a nephew’s wedding, and it can be very beautiful. We weren’t even attacked by large swarms of monster insects.
Then again, it’s pretty hard to beat the weather in Southern California… most of the time. We’ve had more rain this year than I can ever remember.