Climate Change?

The Decider likes to call it Climate Change. We are calling it Global warming. Regardless of the name attached, our weather is changing and we who moved to Maine instead of to Arizona or South Carolina, don't like it much. The Maine Sunday Telegram reported on Sunday that our December will be the warmest on record.

Our 30 year average temperature for December is 27.6 degrees, and our averages for the last five Decembers are:
2001 34.8
2002 27.4
2003 29.6
2004 28
2005 27.8
2006 35.8

Records for snowiest and coldest Decembers are all pre-1978 (snowiest December was 1970, when 54.8 inches of snow fell).

A Trinity College professor and poet drowned when he fell through the ice on Rangeley Lake on Sunday. Rangeley Lake and other water bodies in the area usually are frozen by Jan. 1 (which is the start of the state's ice-fishing season) but warm December weather had left thin ice and open water in several spots:

People who have lived in the Rangeley area for 50 or 60 years have never seen anything like it, warden Reggie Hammond said.

"Nobody's seen the lake not frozen by Jan. 1," he said.

Our total December 2006 snowfall for York is 2.5 inches.

We're not the only ones suffering from lack of snow.