"#NARRATIVEFAIL: Five Years Ago Today: Al Gore Predicted the North Pole Will Be Ice Free in 5 Years."

"Today Cairo had its first snowfall in 100 years."

Poor Al Gore. He almost — or must feel that he almost — got us panicked enough to quickly adopt new rules, and if we had, he could point to those reforms and express gratefulness that we'd heeded his warning and expect adulation for all the good that he'd done. But the very elements of his story that were needed for panic and quick action are exactly what exposes him as so terribly wrong.

He can retrench and say things like: The snow in Egypt is evidence of the truer, overarching narrative which was not so much global warming, but climate chaos. Or: The prediction was about the odds of something cataclysmic happening, the odds were high enough to justify immediate action, and we are lucky that we beat the odds, but we won't be lucky forever.

At the Snow Dogs Café...

... feel free to share.

At the Midday Snow Café...

... the autumn leaves have piled up (submerging the pumpkins of yesterday), and the pre-winter snowflakes bestow glittering promises of what is to come.

"The Great Lakes Storm of 1913, historically referred to as the 'Big Blow,' the 'Freshwater Fury,' or the 'White Hurricane,' was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that devastated the Great Lakes Basin..."

"... in the Midwestern United States and the Canadian province of Ontario from November 7 through November 10, 1913" — 100 years ago.

The deadliest and most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes, the Great Lakes Storm killed more than 250 people, destroyed 19 ships, and stranded 19 others....

From 8:00 p.m. to midnight [on November 9th], the storm became what modern meteorologists call a "weather bomb." Sustained hurricane-speed winds of more than 70 mph (110 km/h) ravaged the four western lakes....

In retrospect, weather forecasters of the time did not have enough data or understanding of atmospheric dynamics to predict or comprehend the events of Sunday, November 9. Frontal mechanisms, referred to then as "squall lines," were not yet understood.

Wisconsin couple was down to "eight pieces of bread, nine 15-ounce bottles of water, half a jar of that jelly and then eight packets of oatmeal."

So they wrote goodbye letters to friends and family — out there stranded in the snow, because they'd driven onto the Beartooth Highway, where "their GPS led" them, even though it's closed from October to April, because of the weather.

It snowed here yesterday.

I was in class, and I'm not sure if it wasn't just rain in town, but further out in the country where Meade was, it looked like this:

At the April Snow Café...

... what do you think of that?

Saturday Cinema Verité...

... in 3 scenes.

At the 2 Dog Café...

... it's springtime!

"I know what you're up to. This is the strange Lutheran thing, isn't it?"

"Stranger even than what the Mormons get up to. It's why you guys are oddly so cool and taciturn about this time of year, the most joyous of all for the promise it holds and for its demonstration of life eternal."

That's Chip Ahoy, in last night's Glacier Café, the one with this picture:



Chip's riff:



If you don't recognize the image within the image, it's from yesterday's "What does Jesus look like?" post, the one that began with a discussion of a leaflet illustration of (supposedly) Jesus, the one where Meade said "If Chip Ahoy had a son, he'd look like Jesus." Because Chip Ahoy really does look that Jesus. Not the guy-that-got-thrown-out-of-the-darts-tournament Jesus, the Jehovah's-Witnesses-leaflet Jesus.



Especially this pic (nicked from the sidebar at Chip's here):

At the Glacier Café...

... we must trek over immense expanses of ice.

At the Blue Sky Café...

... it's the first day of Spring!

"If I had a St. Bernard, I'd get a home snow-maker, and all summer long..."

"... I'd make just that much snow out on the deck," said Meade this morning.



So I took this picture of Abby, the dog that is not our dog.

At the Narrow Path Café...

... come back!

We take advice.

Yesterday's Where's the Ball Café had video of Zeus the Labrador retriever losing the ball in deep snow. This morning, David Davenport commented:

Meade, here's a suggestion. While the snow lasts, train Zeus to look for the ball in a hole in otherwise untrodden snow. Don't throw the ball. Drop it so that it sinks into the snow. Then take Zeus by the collar and direct his view to the ball down in the hole. Repeat this several times until Zeus gets the idea."

Meade immediately took Zeus into the backyard, and, from the window, I shot this video:

At the Go-and-Stop Café...

The upholstery is so comfy....

At the Where's the Ball Café....

... where the hell is the ball?

A morning dog walk in sun and snow.

Abby is 16 weeks old:



She's pretty sweet:



Kisses!

"Rescued teen praised for snow survival skills."

"Nicholas Joy... told his rescuers he learned how to build the shelter from watching a survival show on TV."

"I think the fact that he focused on just hunkering down, settling in and staying sheltered, regardless of whether he’s ever done it before, he was getting himself into a better situation. And maybe more important, he picked a project to work on that caused him not to basically wander further and farther off and freak out."

ADDED: I don't know what TV show he watched, but for future reference, here's how to build a quinzhee:

At the Sidewalk Café...

... take some extra portions.