January 26, 2006  

Entropy of winter

I’m of what you might call the local school of meteorology. Yes, yes, I understand that butterflies cause nasty weather halfway around the globe and that my Right Guard has carved a hole in Earth’s jacket of O3. And I understand that tornados do not actually chase people nor hurricanes punish communities for being un-Christian. Yet, I can’t shake the sense that weather behaves locally.

For example, consider the bizarre mid-winter temperature spike here in Chicago.

mildspell.jpg

Weather, being just a manifestation of energy, obeys the first law of thermodynamics and so it follows that weather, like energy, is not created or destroyed, just moved around. A scientist would tell you that someplace else in the world is getting screwed because Chicago weather was so different in January.

But not me. I’m more local. I don’t trust the balmy weather because I know the conservation of energy is local to Chicago. Why would the weather gods punish anyone but us for our high-energy month? We’ll suffer a below-zero March or four feet of snow in April. Chicago weather punishes its own. We’re part of a closed system. Bundle up!